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Chapter Text

She is cold. It’s bone-deep, and Sansa doesn’t care. There was something that kept her moving, awake, alert while running from Winterfell. She is still terrified that her husband will find her, and if he does, his torments will be even worse. 

That is what keeps her moving, even now that Lady Brienne is at her side with Podrick.

She still doesn’t feel safe. But she is used to that feeling. There has not been a moment since her dear father died when she was safe. 

Jon, she needs to go to her brother. With Arya, Bran, and Rickon gone, they are the last of the Starks. They are the blood of Winterfell. 

She tries to remember the last time she saw Jon. Did she even say goodbye? Was she cold and distant to please her mother? She must have, with Bran injured. She shakes her head, trying to banish those thoughts. She cannot change the past. It doesn’t matter how much she wishes to. She would be a good sister to her siblings. She would save her father. She would leave King’s Landing and beg him to go back North because his life was more important than the right thing to do. 

She is cold, and she is hurting. She thinks the newest wounds left by Ramsay are slowly bleeding under her clothes. She is sore and aching in places ladies should not even know they exist or how they can be used for pleasure. 

No. Ramsay is not after her flesh for carnal pleasure. He had Myranda for that. Her husband lusts after her blood and the pain he can inflict on her. 

I am still me. She thinks, holding the reins of her horse tighter in her hands. She told Theon that she would do something while there was still something of her left. They took everything away from her, bit by bit, flesh wound after flesh wound. She is still alive. She is still Sansa Stark of Winterfell. 

She is battered, afraid, bloody and broken, but she is alive. And she will take her home back. 

She is just a half-frozen girl surrounded by snow and strangers in Castle Black. She feels small and bruised, but something coursing in her veins. Her heart is pounding in her chest as she takes in her surroundings: the men dressed in black, the Wildings, and the dreary castle where Jon has spent the last few years of his life. 

She is tired. She is so tired of being afraid, of being bruised and cut and defiled. And then she sees Jon – it had been so many years since she had last seen her brother. The boy of her recollections clashes with the man he had become. 

Home. She is home. As they both take tentative steps and then hurried ones toward each other, it’s all she can think about. She is home. 

And then she is in Jon’s arms. He is warm and smells of snow, leather, soap, and home. She is in his arms, leaving all her ladylike armour behind. She is in Jon’s arms. She doesn’t flinch. She is not afraid. If anything, for the first time in longer than she cares to remember, she feels safe. 

A damn has burst into her heart. All the love, all the pain for her family that she had to hide to survive feels like a living, hungry thing now inside herself. She doesn’t want to let Jon go. 

He offers comfort when no one did so for such a long time. He is the reminder of the family they have lost. He is brave, gentle and strong. 

Where do these words come from? 

Jon smiles and takes her hand in his. She doesn’t flinch. She hardly listens to the orders he barks to her men.

“We will talk later.” He says, “You’re freezing cold. Have a bath, and then we’ll eat and talk.”

She is still in his arms. She doesn’t want to let go. She doesn’t want him to go.  Cracks in her heart and soul as deep as her husband’s handiwork with a knife are starting to heal. 

Nonetheless, she nods at his words. She thanks him. 

Jon’s eyes are so expressive. There is so much pain in them, so much anguish, but for a moment, they’re absent from his face when he smiles and says, “We will talk, Sansa, I promise.”

He will hear all the ways she let her family down. She will hear of her two weddings to traitors to their family and how she was repeatedly used as a pawn. Will Jon understand? 

Will Jon understand that she didn’t know about Ramsay, or she would have slit Littlefinger’s throat herself, even if she had never used a dagger in her life?

Would he hate her? Would he see her as soiled goods that would only shame their family and their father’s memory?

She feels the loss of contact with Jon almost like a physical blow, and she should know she was hit more than once. 

Here in Castle Black, after many years, her heart is made whole again. At least for a few moments, in Jon’s arms. 

The room is warm. Tears are in her eyes when she sees the steaming bathtub. She undresses, glad Brienne is waiting for her outside and decides to ignore the bruises and scars on her body. 

She needs to wash the blood away, and she has gotten good at it over the years. It’s a skill that her young self, so naive and spoiled, couldn’t imagine she would one day have. The water is warm, and there is soap, which is the only thing that matters. 

She cannot wash away Ramsay from her skin; his handiwork is still there, his presence lingers, but she tries anyway. She scrubs her skin and lets the warmth relax her sore muscles. Her body is taut, waiting for punishment, expecting pain, even now, where she is the safest she has been for years. 

She will be sore after. But it’s nothing she has not experienced before, so she pays no mind to it. Her skin and her hair is finally clean, again. She feels cleaner than she has felt for a long time, perhaps since she was in the Vale. 

Someone left her a cloak. It’s not the light thing she wore when Theon and she jumped to their escape; it’s thick and smells faintly like Jon. She wears it over her clothes and feels like Sansa Stark again. 

Ramsay didn’t break that . She is relieved when she thinks that. She thinks about Theon for a moment, hoping that he is as safe as he can be and that he can be with his sister. Whatever his sins were, she gave him the forgiveness she could, and if she still believed in any gods, she would pray for him. 

There are no Gods, or maybe Cersei was right - they are Gods because they don’t care about their plights. 

She stands by the fireplace in the room until she feels her cheeks burn, and the spectre of the cold she has felt since she fled Winterfell no longer lingers on her skin. She wants to talk to Jon. 

The brother who is the only family she has left until Arya, Bran and Rickon return. The brother who held her in his arms and made her feel safe and home. There is an ache in her heart when she thinks of how sweet and good it was to be reunited with Jon. 

She thought there was nothing left of her heart. She doesn’t know whether to be glad or not to find out that she was mistaken. 

Jon is a grown man. The last time she remembers seeing him in Winterfell, they were children, unaware of how cruel and bleak the world could be. What were they doing when they last saw each other? She can’t remember.  She noticed the scars on his face, and he told her why he wasn’t wearing black. 

He was dead. Dead because he did the right thing. Dead like their father. She thinks her mind would have simply splintered if she had arrived at Castle Black when he was dead. 

She survived watching her father die. She survived in King’s Landing. She clung onto her family’s memory and withstood whatever Joffrey and his mother threw at her. Despite the overpowering grief of hearing of her family’s death and her home’s destruction, she carried on. She bled in her own childhood home, and still, she went on. For some reason, however, the idea of not meeting Jon, of losing him felt like the one thing that would undo her. 

Jon is alive, however. He looks tired, weary and like he can’t believe she is there. Even now that they are sitting in front of the fire and she’s drinking soup, she can feel he is looking at her. 

She gave him a very watered-down version of the events that had occurred in King’s Landing in what felt like a lifetime before: their father’s arrest, Arya’s disappearance, Ice gleaming under the sun, and people clamouring for their father’s head. 

She told Jon about her marriage to Ramsay - the bare bones of it. 

“I jumped from Winterfell’s walls. Theon saved my life. Ramsay is inhuman. ”

She doesn’t want to tell Jon more. And she remembers her brother. He is not stupid. And the North knows what the Boltons are capable of. Roose Bolton and Walder Frey slaughtered their family after all. Ramsay flayed the Cerwins. 

“Do you remember those kidney pies old Nan used to make?” she asks, because the silence between them has become too heavy. She hasn’t talked about home to someone who would understand for years, and she has missed it. She still does, and Jon can understand her. 

“With the peas and onions?” 

They both smile. They were happy children in Winterfell, protected from the world, living in a world where honour meant everything and Catelyn and Ned Stark protected their own. It was a world where they played games, and evil was always vanquished; the maids were saved, the princes were gentle, and the knights were gallant.

“We never should have left Winterfell,” he says. He sounds wistful. He sounds like she feels. Like she would tear up time itself to undo that day, to make them all stay home, safe, away from what the world brought to their family. 

“Don’t you wish we could go back to the day we left?” She looks into the fire, and the words tumble out of her mouth, bitter and true, “I want to scream at myself: don’t go, you idiot!”

Jon doesn’t contradict her. His voice is low when he says, “How could we know?”

They couldn’t. They had all been completely unprepared for the harsh world outside Winterfell. They had paid the price. There are old and new scars and wounds on her body that show how stupid and naive she had been. 

How utterly foolish and terrible she had been to Jon. 

She tells him, and it’s the truth. She has spent so long, through the years, thinking of what an arse she had been to her siblings. She would give everything to tell Arya the same things. She could only tell Jon, however. And she does. 

And Jon—he is as kind as she remembers. He tells her that there is nothing to forgive. 

Only later, she will think back to that moment and realize that’s where it starts for her: in that room, with the fire warming them, she feels like a girl for the first time in longer than she remembers, and her heart soars. 

Jon makes her feel strong. His presence vibrates in places inside herself she wasn’t aware they existed. 

There are no realizations; there is just the relief of not being alone at that moment. There is just Jon and her, the warmth of the fireplace, the terrible ale of the Watch and forgiveness. 

“Where will you go?” 

She asks. She feels like a child when those words leave her mouth. It’s the most honest she has been for years . She isn’t used not being on alert all the time. The bone-deep cold is but a memory now, but her heart beats faster after she asks Jon where he will go.  

 It tugs inside of her. There is a voice that sounds like Cersei sometimes, or like Littlefinger, that reminds her that it’s all her fault. That she deserves to be alone because she was a spoiled, naive child – and her father died for that. 

“Where will we go.” He says and adds, “If I don’t watch over you, Father’s ghost will  come back and murder me.”

Before, when they were children, she could count on one hand with digits to spare how many conversations she had with Jon. They are in a room together now. She has tried to drink the Watch’s hideous ale, to let him see that she wasn’t a child any more. She wasn’t the perfect lady. She doesn’t want to, not with her brother. 

Jon’s voice seems to speak right to her heart. 

Where will we go. 

He is not abandoning me. She thinks. And she is grateful, more than words could ever convey. Jon doesn’t know how lonely she is or how desperate she has been. He doesn’t know of the wounds in her body and that she hasn’t been able to be herself ever since their father was arrested. 

 “Where will we go.” She says, and she cannot stop looking at him. She is smiling her first genuine smile in so long that she feels her heart close to bursting in her chest. She imagines Jon and her running away to Essos, far from Cersei and the Boltons. Jon would protect her, but there are scars on her back, old and white, that come from Rob’s victories. There are scars on Jon’s face as well, and he told her about what his brothers of the Watch did. Would they truly be safe even if they ran away?

Rob was their King. The Starks belong in the North and have led people for thousands of years. The Boltons mock and sully what Winterfell stands for, and despite her fantasies she  cannot run away and forget. 

She tells Jon that there is only one place for them and it’s home,  because they are the blood of Winterfell, and it belongs to them. It wasn’t won by conquest. Betrayal and treachery allow Roose Bolton to have her father’s title and her family’s castle. It is terror and fear that keeps Ramsay in power. It is not right. And she is so tired of playing a part, of pretending to be a little caged bird; the last part of the mask she kept in King’s Landing was shredded the night she married Ramsay, and he raped her. 

Jon doesn’t take her words seriously at first. He doesn’t know, she doesn’t want him to know what Ramsay took from her. She cannot tell him that she has been a prey for years and that the girl who knelt in front of a mad boy and was bent over her childhood bed, in her own home, is dead. Only the wolf is left. 

She will take Winterfell back on her own. She will lie, deceive, kill and tear her enemies apart if she has to. She will. The resolve kept growing as Ramsay’s hounds followed her scent and she crossed frozen rivers and the newest wounds in her body screamed in agony. She wants Jon to be with her, however. They are the only Starks in the North now. She wants him by her side because he is her brother and because he makes her feel home. 

He is tired of fighting. He doesn’t know what she knows. He doesn’t know the Lannisters or the Boltons. He knows betrayal , however. Stark blood runs in his veins and their father’s words must also echo in his heart. 

Jon’s dark eyes bore into hers when he told her he had fought and lost. He sounds like a knight from the songs she used to love. He looks like a weary warrior.  Her heart, what’s left of it, breaks for him, for how life treated him. She wishes nothing more than to hold him and tell him that they are together now, that the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. 

She can’t. She couldn’t save her father's life because she was a stupid little girl at the time, unaware of the cruelty of men,  but she can take back their home in her family’s memory and for her living siblings. 

They need to take back Winterfell if they want to be safe. Nothing else matters. They will rest after. No one will harm them. She won’t let them. She is done being a pawn. No one will ever use her again. Littlefinger was right: there is no justice in the world unless they make it. 

“I want you to help me, but I’ll do it myself if I have to.” She says, because she is not a little caged bird any longer. She is a wolf. She is what Joffrey Baratheon, Cersei Lannister, Petyr Baelish and Ramsay Bolton made. 

Jon looks at her for a long moment, and a shadow of a smile appears on his lips when he says, “You would do it, wouldn’t you?” 

She takes his hands in hers, and  says, “I would, but I want you to help me, Jon. It’s our home!”

“Aye, Sansa.”  he says. His hands are warm, and Sansa marvels at the callouses on his skin. Her heart flutters when she realizes that she doesn’t know Jon. It’s her fault, she apologized for being a arse to him, but she wishes she knew the man in front of her better.

Jon gently squeezes her hands and says, “We will take back our home, but you need to rest now.”

She knows she is pale. She knows there must be shadows under her eyes, and most of her body aches. Jon does not know about what’s hidden behind her plain gown, and she isn’t tired. She is too excited, too brimming with ideas and feelings to be truly weary. 

Besides, sleep has evaded her since she fled Winterfell. The only reason why she isn’t scared and still on alert is because of Jon. 

She used to take that feeling of being safe for granted. She used to feel like no one could ever do her any harm when her father was alive. There has not been a day, since she saw him die that she hasn’t been scared. 

For the first time in a long time, she is not afraid, and she is grateful for that feeling. 

“Thank you,” she says. “For everything.”

“I am your family,”

“I wasn’t always a good sister,”

“We were children, Sansa. It’s all in the past,”

“I will do better, I promise.”

“Aye, me too.”

Brienne is outside the door and escorts her to her chambers. She knows she is safe: Joffrey is long dead, Cersei is far away and Ramsay can’t risk his father’s wrath by attacking the Night Watch. She is safe - Jon had executed the traitors in his ranks, Wildings and his brothers at the Watch are loyal to him. Yet, when she is alone in her chambers, she cannot help but hide her face in her hands and sob quietly, like she is used to doing. 

She is not afraid, but it’s the first time in a very long time that she is safe enough that she has time to mourn her losses and the life she once dreamed she would have. She can grieve her loss of innocence and Jon’s pain. She can be the girl she used to be when no one is watching and when she is sure no one will hurt her. 

She sobs until no new tears come. Her face is hot and flushed, her eyes and her cheeks sting with the salt of her tears, her throat is sore, and she feels the weight of the past few weeks on her body. 

Her eyes are still red-rimmed when she finally succumbs to sleep, and the last thing she sees is her parents in Winterfell, looking over them from the battlements. 

He will tell himself later that it was a coincidence. He will tell himself many things when things become complicated when the ghosts of the past and the threats of the present and the future repeatedly remind him of the truth. 

He cannot sleep—that is the simplest truth. Lady Melisandre and her god of light brought him back from death but forgot to bring part of him. He is tired of twisting and turning in his bed. There is too much on his mind, and his heart drums in his ribcage. 

Thoughts are forming in his mind: a shape, a name and the unexpected feelings they bring.  

In the darkness of his chamber, he remembers Ygritte and how he held her in his arms after she died. He remembers Hardhorne. He remembers their voices saying, “For the watch,” as he bled out on the snow. 

There is something else, however. A shape: red hair, fair skin, blue eyes. She is a grown woman, so different from the child he used to see in Winterfell. 

Sansa.   

Their family is broken. Arya, Bran, and Rickon might still be alive, but who knows if or when they will return?  Their father was killed, Sansa’s mother and Robb were slaughtered at the Twins. They are the only ones left—the only ones who can avenge what happened. 

Sansa, who wore flowers in her hair and was always radiant and a perfect lady, left Winterfell to be Queen and sought refuge at Castle Black, trembling, scared, and cold, fleeing from her monster of a husband. 

She is right. Winterfell is their home. Although he didn’t really know her when they were children, she reminded him of their father, mother, and Arya when she told him that she would take back their home with or without his help. 

What did they do to you? He wondered when she spoke. 

He is outside his chambers, and he thinks they will have to leave Castle Black soon. His watch has ended, and he cannot be there anymore. Sansa would be in danger. He knows she barely scraped the surface of what truly happened to her with the things she shared with him. He knows because he did the same. 

The truth is that he doesn’t know Sansa, and she doesn’t know him. Perhaps, in time, they might reveal more to each other, they might learn how to be brother and sister. 

Those feelings of possessiveness, of being home, of being whole again would fade and turn into familial love. They had to. 

Sansa however, has been in his mind all night. Her face juxtaposes with Ygritte, and her words trump those uttered by his traitors, the brothers of the Watch. The room becomes too hot and stifling, and he only finds some relief outside, in the corridors he walks. 

He is used to the cold and the bleakness of the castle. He pays no attention to the brothers he meets. They fear him because he came back to life and executed the traitors. 

Even The Others are far from his mind, for once. He feels like a spectre haunting the halls of Castle Black. And it makes sense because he was dead, and then Melisandre brought him back. He was completely lost, and then Sansa came back. 

Yet, he still feels like a shadow as he walks down the hall where Sansa’s chamber is. Why is he there? 

He slows down his pace when he is in front of Sansa’s chamber. The door is left ajar, Lady Brienne’s squire is outside, and he can hear Sansa’s voice from inside the room. 

“He was here. He was here!” Sansa says. 

He hears Lady Brienne’s reply. The woman has a soft voice, he can hear sympathy in it when she says, “No, my lady. I’ve been outside the whole time and I checked your chamber before you retired.”

Silence, for a moment or two, he can almost feel Sansa’s tremulous sigh and then she says, “You must think me crazy, Lady Brienne.”

“No, my lady, I do not.” Brienne replies. “I believe you are very strong.”

Another sigh, Sansa’s voice is stronger when she says, “It felt so real.”

“He will not harm you again, lady Sansa. I promise you.”

He has not talked to Sansa’s sworn sword, he believes her capable and, from what Sansa told him she has already saved her once.  He didn’t avenge his father’s unjust death, he didn’t join Rob, he swore his oaths and forsook them while among the Wildings. He chose honour above love while his family crumbled all over him. Arya, Bran and Rickon lost, Sansa bartered and sold like cattle, their home in the hands of the monster who killed Robb and Lady Catelyn. 

He cannot change his past or Sansa’s, but he can protect her, now. He can do what Rob failed to do. He can make sure no harm will ever befall on her again. He was reluctant when she told him they need to take Winterfell back, he can help her with that. They don’t have the men, but he can fight for her. 

It makes his heart beat faster in his chest. He steps toward the door, and Lady Brienne’s squire stands taller, his hand on the hilt of his sword. 

“I am Sansa’s brother,” he says. 

“I know. Give them some time.” 

Jon nods. The boy’s words seem to carry some knowledge. Perhaps this isn’t the first time Sansa needed to have words with her sworn sword in the middle of the night. He suspects Sansa has barely scraped the surface of what her husband did. Sansa was always dutiful. She was never reckless. She told him she jumped with Theon from the walls of Winterfell to escape. 

He remembers the child who sat with the other girls by the fire and read about knights and love songs. He remembers Sansa brushing Lady’s fur. What did that man do to her? 

He wants to see Sansa, to make sure that she is alright, and to tell her that no one will ever harm her again, not as long as he draws breath. He is surprised by the fierceness of his instinct. It’s the most alive he has felt since Melisandre brought him back. He doesn’t feel hollowed out and lost. He clenches his hands in fists, he doesn’t ask the boy any questions, he doesn’t move, he doesn’t even listen to what Lady Brienne and Sansa are saying now. 

Sansa deserves more than having him overhear her conversations in the middle of the night. 

“She is safe here,” he says after a moment. 

“He sent hounds after her,” the boy says. 

Hounds. He has heard about Ramsay Snow’s hounds; word has reached even Castle Black of what Roose Bolton’s bastard loves to do. And that monster is married to his sister. He feels his heart stuck in his throat, and there is a part of him that wants to smash everything on sight until he feels like he can breath again. 

He doesn’t want Sansa to feel embarrassed or like she has to explain herself to him. She doesn’t want her anger, either. 

“I’ll be in my chambers if Sansa needs me,” he says. 

He doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay and make sure Sansa is safe. He wants to stay because he doesn’t know Lady Brienne and her squire and doesn’t trust them. Sansa told him that Lady Brienne and Pod saved her, and it has to be enough. 

He lingers for a moment more, unable to walk away or knock on Sansa’s door. He will talk to her in the morning. He will (see her, her beautiful face, her glorious red hair, the depth of her blue eyes) tell her that they might not have the men to take Winterfell back, but he will try for her. 

He walks back to his room, 

He was here. He was here. 

Sansa’s voice, so shaken because of a nightmare. He would protect her from her husband. He would fight until even the dreams faded. 

It does not occur to him, not once during that sleepless night, that he never thinks about his family. He only thinks about Sansa. 

Chapter Text

Jon is no longer Commander of the Watch. He told her he resigned from his post, but the men still defer to him. Sansa is relieved, in a way, because this makes things easier for her in Castle Black. No one has made any comments or even approached her. 

She is sure that Brienne can defend her. She has already shown her prowess against Ramsay’s men, but she believes  she is safe among Wildings and men of the watch because of Jon. They respect him, and some of the men fear him. Therefore, she is protected. She had forgotten what it was like and she likes that she can walk the halls without any fear.  

Running to Castle Black was her goal, and it kept her going long after her body had become numb with cold. However, she had no idea how Jon would react to her presence. She didn’t imagine she would feel like that: safe, home, strong. 

It’s been four days since she came to Castle Black, and she knows Jon has been outside her chambers every night. Brienne told her last night. 

She hates her nightmares. Isn’t it enough that her skin is marred and that both Joffrey and Ramsay loved to see her bleed? Most of her nightmares start in King’s Landing, whether it’s the Sept of Baelor, where people rejoice at seeing an innocent man losing his head, or in the Red Keep. Joffrey turns into Ramsay, and sometimes, they hunt for her together. Ramsay is in her room, emerging from the shadows with a knife in his hand and a glint in his eye, and it feels real.

She hates herself for that. She hates that she cries out or wakes up with her heart lodged in her throat, and she cannot calm down unless Brienne is there. Last night, when she told her Jon was outside, a small part of her wished for him to be in her place. It’s stupid, she knows, but she can’t help those thoughts because when she is with Jon, she feels strong, like she can take on the whole world. 

It’s not what she felt when she was a girl when their father was alive. She didn’t know the depth of men’s cruelty at the time. She used to think everyone was like Ned Stark and Catelyn Tully: strong, brave, honourable. 

She knows the truth now - and the safety she feels with Jon is different. It’s something new that she will never take for granted. She can’t, not after all she has seen and been through. 

Jon is with Ser Davos and Lady Melisandre when she joins them for lunch. She hasn’t seen Jon since they broke their fast together, and she can’t help drinking in all the details of his face and the way he moves. This stranger, who is her brother, who held her as if she meant something to him when they were reunited, is a good, honourable man. 

He is also a warrior. He is not the blonde knight or prince of the tales she used to love as a child; he is real. All the good things she had come to believe didn’t exist any longer, Jon has them in himself. Every day, every moment they spend together brings forward more things that surprise her about him and get under her skin. 

She doesn’t care about Tormund’s presence. If Jon says they can trust these people, she will. She doesn’t contribute to the conversation. She listens to Jon talking to Ser Davos and Tormund. Despite all she has been through, she is relaxing. She doesn’t even care about the food. She doesn’t lie to Jon’s friend: there are more important things. 

There is no strategy yet for taking Winterfell back. She thinks Jon is still unsure because they have no army, and he told her he is tired of fighting. She thought Ramsay had bled her heart out. She has felt nothing for months except fear, and yet her heart breaks for Jon. She wishes things could be different, but they aren’t. 

Ramsay Snow will want her back; he won’t care about the Night Watch or traditions. It’s only a matter of time before her husband makes his move. They need to be ready. 

It occurs to her that Jon might have sent her away, and Ramsay is her husband by all the laws of God and men. He offered her his room instead. He gave her a cloak and some money to buy fabric for a new, warmer dress and cloak. He has been outside her chambers every night after her nightmares. 

Jon said, “Where will we go.”

It’s more than anyone has done for her in a very long time, and she feels he has no ulterior motive. She can only see kindness in his eyes, which makes her heart swell and it confuses her because she is no longer used to kindness and goodness. 

She doesn’t trust Ser Davos or Lady Melisandre, and she doesn’t know Tormund or Eddison Tollet, but she has observed them with Jon, and she knows they care about him and trust him. 

When the scroll comes, Sansa feels all the goodness in the room being swallowed by darkness. She recognizes the sigil. She is not afraid for some reason. Her nightmares are filled with fear and pain; she has fresh scars and pain throbbing in her body, but in that moment, she can’t feel any fear. She will not give Ramsay that. 

Jon reads the scroll aloud, and she can see the fury in his eyes. 

Winterfell is mine, bastard, come and see. Your brother Rickon is in my dungeon.

Rickon is her sweet baby brother. Sansa hates the way her mind works. She snuffs out the thoughts in her head as fast as she can because it’s not her fault if they shaped her into who she is now. It’s not her fault if she survived Joffrey, Cersei, Littlefinger and her husband and learned from them. Jon cannot know the truth. It would kill him now. They need to take Winterfell back. 

She holds Jon’s gaze. Her worry for Rickon is true, and she knows what her husband can do. She should have told Jon more, not just the bare bones of who he is. And she will. She swears she will tell him everything because he needs to know if he hopes to defeat Ramsay. 

I want my bride back. Send her to me, bastard, and I won’t trouble you and your Wilding lovers.  

Bride. She is careful not to show her emotions; that is something she mastered in King’s Landing, yet she cannot help but recoil at Ramsay’s words. She is not Ramsay’s bride. She was his prisoner on the good days, his plaything and whore on the bad. She will never, ever go back to him. She will die before going back to the man. 

She can see when Ramsay’s words hit the mark, and she knows Jon wants to spare her, but it’s too late. Whatever innocence she had left the night she married Ramsay, he raped and carved it out of her. 

“Go on,”

“Just more of the same,” he says, his voice ripe with disgust and anger. 

She takes the scroll from him and reads it aloud. Those people need to know that Ramsay is not a danger to her alone. He needs to be eliminated, root and stem. As long as he is alive, no one in the North will ever be safe. 

Jon is looking at her as she reads. She knows Ramsay would set the North ablaze not to have her back but to show he is his father’s heir. He is insane, but also cunning. 

“Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North,” Jon repeats after she reads. 

It hurts him. Good. He is angry. Maybe he finally sees what she has been seeing for months. Does his skin crawl like hers? Their father was killed by a bastard king, and a bastard son of the man who slaughtered their brother at a wedding is now Warden of the North. He has their home. 

Ramsay killed his father, his stepmother and her child. 

“His father is dead. Ramsay killed him,” she says.  

Finally, they talk about fighting men. Ramsay has more. She knows nothing about warfare and battles but knows they are Starks, and the North remembers. She knows they have a chance.  

When she reaches over the table and takes Jon’s hand in hers, her heart is hammering in her chest. She believes in Jon. They need to take back their home. 

Jon sees, finally. 

If she still believed in any Gods, she would beg forgiveness because she doesn’t tell Jon that Rickon’s days are numbered. She hopes she is wrong, and if there is one person whom she believes can save their little brother, it is Jon. She doesn’t beg forgiveness from the gods for not telling him. 

Jon Snow still believes in honour. She doesn’t. Honour and Gods didn’t save her family. People like Cersei Lannister, Ramsay Bolton and Littlefinger thrive. There is no justice unless one makes it for oneself. That Sansa believes. 

“We need to talk,” Jon tells her. 

Sansa nods. Yes, they do. Jon needs to know exactly who Ramsay is if he wants to beat him. And she knows she cannot hide what happened to her from him. He needs to understand. He needs to see. 

“Tonight, in your solar,” she says. 

She dreads the words she will have to say and the way Jon will look at her afterwards, but she must do it. If only to protect him. 

Protecting Jon is becoming the most important thing for her. 

The raven from Littlefinger is not really a surprise. Baelish is a very dangerous man, but he is also the Lord Protector of the Vale, and he owes her. There is only one person she could play the game with, Baelish. 

He sold her to monsters, and she can use that. 

That doesn’t mean she isn’t angry, and it doesn’t mean she won't have to barter and sell herself again. She is not afraid, however. She has been sold before, but this time, Jon is there. She knows she is putting too much faith in him—he is not a hero from any book, and she no longer believes in songs. 

Nonetheless, Jon exists, and the fact that such a man is in her life now upends her brittle, scarred world. She needs to protect Jon from the ugliness of her world, from men and women without honour, just like he is protecting her from Ramsay. 

He doesn’t know she is meeting Littlefinger. She wishes she was sorry to keep it from him, but she isn’t. She needs Baelish on her side. As volatile and untrue his loyalties are, the man has a soft spot for her. Or he wouldn’t have sent the raven asking to meet him. 

Brienne is with her; she will not meet Littlefinger alone. She doesn’t think he would try and kiss her again, but the idea of that man touching her is repugnant. The idea of any man touching her is scary, but she loathes Petyr Baelish. 

She knows what to say to goad him. That particular lesson comes from Cersei Lannister. She once told him that a woman’s best weapon was between her legs. It was a useless lesson with her husband, but she knows the way Littlefinger looks at her. She can use that. 

It was her resemblance to her lady mother that Baelish craved. She knows that. Baelish had shown his hand. He sold her to the Boltons, but now that she is free, he will try to be close to her again. It’s a game they’ve been playing for a long time, she knows the rules, and she is not afraid to play. There is too much at stake for her to be scared. 

“Go back to Moat Catlin. My brother and I will take back the North on our own, and I never want to see you again!”

It is a gamble, but her anger is real, and that isn’t the worst mask she ever had to wear. Baelish doesn't need to know that she would beg for the knights of the Vale. He must think that she is outside his grasp, that once she kills Ramsay, she will wed some Lord of the North, and that he will no longer have access to her and her kingdom.

She has been used for her name and strategic value for the North for far too long. It took her marriage to Ramsay to understand exactly how much she was worth. 

She will not be used any more. 

They killed the stupid girl. She bled in the Red Keep. They tried to clip the wings of the little bird, but they failed. She sang songs and lied until everything became a mummer farce. She wore masks upon masks and bled in her childhood home until what was left is the person she is now. Whatever she is: scarred, thirsty for vengeance, terrified and angry, cold and unafraid to play the game, to be smarter.

Baelish tells her about Riverrun. It is worth trying, even though she doubts her mother’s family can help, not with the Lannisters’ forces breathing down their necks. 

“The time may come when you’ll need an army loyal to you,” he says. 

She knows it’s the reason why she is there. She suspects Baelish saw through her game, but he seems content to play with her. It’s enough for now. 

“I have an army,” she says.

“Your brother’s army.”

Baelish takes a step toward her and adds, “Half brother.”

There is relief inside of her because Baeliish’s last words mean he doesn’t really understand her, at all. He still thinks she cares about Jon’s status. He doesn’t know that there is no one she trusts more than Jon. It’s irrational, the absolute, complete trust she has in a man who is a stranger to her, but she cannot ignore that feeling any more than she can ignore all the lessons she has learned since her father died. 

Her father died because she was a stupid girl. She ended up married to a monster because she was naive and trusting. 

Yet, her heart cannot be wrong about Jon. Her blood tells her she can trust him. Jon is good, kind, and honourable. Although she is tainted and broken, she recognizes his goodness. 

 Baelish leaves. There is a promise hanging in the air. He will give her the knights of the Vale if she asks. It is a good contingency plan, one she needs to share with Jon sooner or later. 

He will not like it, especially not after what she tells him when they talk. They don’t have a choice. 

Jon’s solar is warm. She hasn’t seen him all day, not even at dinner. She smiles when Ghost comes to her and nudges her hand. It makes her miss Lady. It makes her wonder whether Nymeria and Summer are alright. She wonders where Arya and Bran are. Are they safe? Will she see her siblings again?

 Ghost makes her miss her home and what her life used to be so much that she has to blink back tears. She composes herself. The last thing Jon needs is for her to be a quivering mess. 

“Are you sending Lady Brienne to Riverrun?” Jon asks, looking up from the stack of papers he was reading when she got into the room. 

She lies to Jon. She is sorry about that. She doesn’t like lying to him. Jon is not like the others. Lying is so easy for her now, and it’s the only way she has control over what happens to her. Jon doesn’t understand. She isn’t sure she wants him to. Littlefinger cannot taint Jon. He will not be used against her. He will not be a pawn in Baelish’s games. 

She is already broken, and she learned the rules. She can let Jon be an honourable, kind man, and she will take care of the mud and the taint that comes from playing the game. 

“I don’t think Uncle Brynden can spare any men, but I believe we should try.” she says. 

He seems to consider her words before nodding. He offers her some ale, and she takes it, even if it tastes horrible. They sit in front of the hearth, and Sansa likes the silence between them. It’s not fraught with tension. It’s not a prelude to something terrible like she experienced in the past. The silence is warm and comfortable. 

He looks tired. She resists the urge to ask him how he is or touch him, and she wishes she were a better person. He deserves to be reunited with Arya, who has always loved him best, and with Bran and Rickon, who never thought about the side of the bed he was born into. 

The truth is that she doesn’t know how to love any longer. They beat her ability to love properly out of her. She can only stare at the man, feeling her cheeks flush when he looks back at her. Wishing, yearning that she could do better, be better for him. 

Jon is hesitant, but eventually, he asks her about Ramsay. She sighs and says, “I was stupid. I never learn.”

“You were not, Sansa.”

“You don’t know what I did, you don’t know -”

“You did what you could to survive. I didn’t. Father and Robb didn’t.”

“I begged for Father’s life on my knees. He promised he would be merciful. And I believed him!” She says. 

She will never forgive herself for trusting Cersei and her son. She doesn’t know how Jon, Arya, Bran and Rickon ever could. Sometimes, she thinks Robb left her to rot in King’s Landing as a punishment. And she thinks she deserved it. She deserved worse.

She tells Jon as much. The words are so profoundly splintered in her heart and have been so long that she feels breathless after uttering them.  

She tells Jon about Ramsay. She leaves nothing out. Jon needs to know what sort of animal he will have to fight to take back Winterfell. 

He asks some questions about Baelish and Theon, but he mostly stays silent as she tells him what Ramsay did to her. Ladies are not supposed to know these things, but then again, people stopped treating her as a lady long ago. She was the hostage, the child bride, the bastard in the Vale, and Ramsay’s toy. 

She sees sympathy in his eyes but not pity. She thinks she would start screaming until her lungs exploded if she saw commiseration in Jon’s dark eyes. 

“He killed his father after you left,” Jon says after a moment of silence. 

“And Walda Frey and her child,” she adds. She is not sorry that Roose Bolton and his Frey wife are dead. She is only worried that there is no one to keep Ramsay at bay. Theon killed Myranda. Ramsay is alone, and he is dangerous. 

“Will he hurt Rickon?” 

“No, he needs him alive and unhurt to goad you into fighting him. Not even Ramsay would be so stupid.” 

“He knows we don’t have the men,” Jon says. 

Sansa looks at the flames. Jon has been so honest so far. She can try and trust him. She can shoulder having to deal with Baelish, and she can let him lead the army to take back their home. 

“We might,” she says in a low voice. 

She wasn’t ashamed to tell Jon about Ramsay, but she feels shame now because dealing with Baelish is more dangerous and dirty than being tortured by her husband. 

She tells Jon, and he looks at her. He says, “You told me he sold you to the Boltons.”

He did. But she let him. She underestimated Ramsay, and she paid the price for it. She will not make the same mistakes again. 

“Aye,” she says, “But he didn’t force me to marry him.”

Baelish told her that she could get her home back and control her husband. Whether he knew about Ramsay or not, she said yes. She married the son of the man who killed her brother. She walked into her family’s Godswood and made an Oath before the Weirdwood Tree. 

She is an oathbreaker. She has no honour. She is broken beyond repair. She will take back what’s hers, and no one will stop her from seeing her husband die before her eyes. Jon doesn’t understand that. 

“It would be our last option in case we don’t have the numbers,” she says.

“You would be in his debt,” he says, “What would he ask in return?”

Littlefinger wants everything. She has never met anyone so greedy, so hungry for power. Not even Cersei Lannister.

Would Jon hate her if she told him that she could string Littlefinger along? She knows he will not attempt anything until they take Winterfell back, and he would work slowly to be at her side and control the North. 

Cersei Lannister would not have shared anything. She would have lied and deceived until she got what she wanted. Baelish would deceive with a smile on his face. She is what they made, but she is not either of them. She is broken, perhaps beyond repair, but Jon needs to know. 

“We will deal with it after. It will not matter if we lose,” she says. She is not lying to Jon, but she is not being completely honest either. 

“I don’t like it, Sansa,” he says, and his northern accent makes the flesh on her arms break in goosebumps. She blinks in surprise. 

“I don’t like it either. Perhaps we won’t need the Knights of the Vale. Perhaps being Starks will be enough to gather men.” she says. 

She resists the urge to reach out and touch his hand, but just barely. Jon notices her restlessness because he quirks an eyebrow, and she smiles. Gods, she can’t even remember when she last smiled sincerely before reuniting with him. 

“Did Baelish tell you about Riverrun?” Jon asks after a moment. 

She sighs and nods her head. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks. 

“Because my life has been all lies for too long. I am sorry, Jon. I need time to -” She trails off. 

“Trust me?” he asks. 

She reaches over and grabs his hand, then, without hesitation, this time. It’s warm, and she ignores the butterflies in her stomach and the shivers that run up and down her spine. She looks at him. There is curiosity and a hint of hurt in his eyes. Jon is the last person she would ever intentionally hurt. 

“No, I trust you. I do.” She says. 

There is nothing of the little bird and the woman wearing a white dress as she walked down her home’s Godswood in her.  She feels like herself. She hears herself, her own voice. It’s scary but also exhilarating, even if explaining to him why it is so easy to lie is daunting. 

She tries. For him, because they are all that remains until Arya, Bran, and Rickon can come home. She tries because she feels strong with Jon at her side, and they need to trust each other, even if trusting is like walking blindfolded on a steep pathway for her. 

Trusting people had devastating effects on her life. 

Jon, however, is not like the others. 

He listens to the words she whispers while hanging onto his hand, feeling like it’s her only lifeline. 

At some point, while the words she never uttered, which had been left to fester in her heart, spill out, they interlace fingers. Neither of them noticed for a long time. When Jon does, he gently breaks the contact between them and says, “I should have come to you.”

“You are here now,” she says, missing the contact between them more than she thought she could. 

“Aye. I am not going anywhere,” he says. 

She believes him. Her heart beats faster in her chest, and she smiles again. 

Jon is there. They will take back their home. She can beat Littlefinger. There is nothing she feels she cannot do in that moment. 

Scarlet blooms on her thighs. The tip of Ramsays’ knife kissed her skin, the milky white of her thighs counts rivulets of red. It is not the worst he has done to her. It’s not even as painful as humiliating. He is kneeling between her spread legs. There is a gag in her mouth, and she knows Myranda is there, watching, moaning in pleasure. 

“Sansa, Sansa, Sansa.” Ramsay chants. “Wife, I love how you spread your legs for me. Only for me, do you not?”

His free hand takes a fistful of her hair. It hurts. Their faces are so close now. She has a gag. He cannot kiss her. She is relieved. 

Ramsay’s kisses are always bruising, his tongue fucking her mouth before the pain starts. 

“He cannot save you, wife. I’ll have you back soon. I’ll break every bone in your feet and cut the fingers, and then I’ll fill you with my seed. “

Sansa shakes her head. She will not have Ramsay’s child. The man smiles; his blue eyes are pools of madness when he says, “Perhaps my seed has already taken root. Will your Jon like you when you are pregnant with my babe?”

She struggles. The knife kisses her skin again against her stomach. 

“I am here. I am always here, Sansa. It doesn’t matter how you run. I am always there with you.” 

 She screams behind the gag. It’s not the pain. It’s his words. They crack her heart open. 

He is here in her chambers, and no one can save her. 

“Shall I deal with your bastard brother now? I’ll make you watch before I’ll take you from behind. What should I do, wife?

Another slash over her breastbone—more crimson on white. 

“Flay your traitor brother? Put a baby in your belly? Perhaps there already is one. I will flay Jon Snow. I’ll leave just enough of him to see what a whore you are, really.”

She fights. She shakes away the gag in her mouth. 

She tastes blood in her mouth. It’s not the first time. “It’s not real!!” she screams. 

“My babe is real. What I’ll do to your precious bastard brother is real!”

Ramsay is so surprised when she takes the knife in her hand that he doesn’t move a muscle. 

It’s not real. She needs to wake up.

She doesn’t hesitate. She plunges the knife deep into her stomach. 

“You won’t kill Jon!  I will kill you!”

It’s finally fading: the bloodied sheets, the ripped nightgown, the scarlet rivulets of blood on her skin. 

“Part of me will always live in you,” Ramsay says, but his voice is now feeble and distant. 

She claws out of what she is living, a nightmare so vivid that she can feel the blade against her skin, and when she blinks, Ramsay is gone. 

Theon is there. Crying, ashamed. “Part of him is still on you, Sansa.”

No. No. 

She needs to wake up. 

She needs.

Jon…

She needs to wake up.

Her scream is stuck in her throat, and the blankets and the furs are twisted around her body. When Brienne opens the door, she sees that Jon is there behind her. 

“Jon.” She tells Brienne. “Please, let Jon come in!”

Brienne nods,, “Are you surre Lady Sansa? It’s not proper. ”

“I am Ramsay Snow’s wife. Nothing in our marriage was proper!”

Her heart beats so fast in her chest that she almost can’t breathe. 

Ramsay will not kill Jon. 

They will take back Winterfell. 

He will disappear from inside herself. She will make him disappear. 

When Jon enters her chambers, he looks worried. She has sweated in her nightgown, and she is sure she must look quite frightened. 

Jon sits on her bed at a respectable distance from her, and Sansa wants to lunge into his arms. 

She wants to feel safe, to forget Ramsay’s words. 

She cannot. 

“There is a chance, small mind you, that I might be with child,” she says. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. 

She shakes her head. “The Maester gave me moon tea, but Ramsay said that a part of him lives in me.”

“It was a dream, Sansa,” Jon tells her. 

She shakes her head, “It felt different. It was not like the usual- I can’t. I can’t have his baby, Jon. Don’t let me have his baby!”

She flinches when she hears Jon move on the bed, and she is too scared to imagine what he might think. 

“We don’t have a Measter, but Wildings Women and Lady Melisandre are there. Whatever you need, Sansa.”

They are so close on the bed. And she doesn’t care whether it’s improper or not. Jon is her family, but, more than that, he is the only person she trusts. 

Jon doesn’t even touch her; he is so close that she can feel his warmth, smell his skin, and see the resolve in his eyes. 

“Brienne told me you were here for the past few days,” she says. 

Jon nods. “I didn’t know if you wanted to see me.”

She feels new tears in her eyes, and she stifles a sob in her throat.

Yes, they killed the little girl - but nights still belong to them. She is still their prey, them to torture and hurt. She is not strong enough to fight them in her dreams. 

Until that night when she fought back, she killed herself to escape that nightmare.

“In the morning, you might want to talk to Lady Melisandre. Whatever you choose to do, you have me. I am by your side.”

She looks down at her hands folded on her lap, tears welling her eyes. 

“Even if there is a baby and I decide to kill it?” she asks. 

Jon nods. His hand goes to caress her hair, “Even then.”

“I cannot have his baby,” she says. It’s the truth. Besides, the Boltons need to disappear from the map entirely. Ramsay is the last of them. 

“What would father say?” she asks. 

“Father is dead, Sansa. You are alive.” 

Jon’s voice is so soulful, filled with certainty. He doesn’t think less of her. He cares about her. 

And she cares about him. 

Is it familial love? She doesn’t know. It feels completely different from what she felt for Robb and their siblings. 

“Can -can you stay here? Just until I fall asleep again..”

Jon nods. “Of course, Sansa. And I don’t want you to think that you cannot come to me for anything. We need to take care of each other.”

“Because father’s ghost will murder you?”

“No, because we’re all we have got.”

Does it feel it, too? They are all they have got. No one else truly matters until their siblings are returned to them. 

“I’ll take the floor,” he says. 

“The bed is large enough for both of us.”

“Sansa -”

You’re my brother, is on the tip of her tongue. But she doesn’t say it. And neither does Jon. 

“I trust you,” she says instead.

And it’s the truth. She trusts him. 

Jon removes his cloak, sword and boots and settles above the furs.

“I don’t think there is a babe.” He says after a few minutes. 

“No?” she asks.

“He is rotten. All of him.” 

She seeks his hand, and Jon holds it and says, “Everything will be all right, Sansa.”

It goes against everything she has learned over the past years, but she believes him. 

“Good night, Jon,”

“Good night, Sansa,” he replies. And then she does her utmost to stay still when he places a soft, feather-like kiss on her knuckles. 

Sleep comes, and there are no nightmares this time around. In her dream, she is with Jon in Godswood, under the Weirdwood Tree. He is smiling, which makes her heart ache. 

She is smiling as well, and it’s the most peaceful she has felt for a long time. It’s Jon and her, together in their home. 

It’s the future.

Chapter Text

Lady Melisandre’s room is dark. It smells good of perfume and oils, of spices and clean flesh. The woman scares Sansa a little. She resurrected Jon, however, and she feels she has a debt to the woman. 

“The man you run from,” she greets. He is thirsty for blood. He finds pleasure in other people’s pain. Are you here for the scars?”

“Did you see them in the fires?” she asks. 

She shakes her head, “It’s in how you carry yourself.”

“I’m not here for the scars.”

“Your womb, then.” the woman says. 

She holds the woman’s gaze. 

“Do you fear you are with child?”

She tells her about the moon tea and about her irregular courses ever since she was in King’s Landing. Ramsay had her the night before she fled Winterfell. And the dream. It felt ominous. She is still scared of it, despite the dream that came after, despite waking up with Jon looking at her and feeling like a girl, not a broken doll like she is used to. 

“I am not a midwife,” she says. 

Sansa nods. There are midwives among the Wildlings. Besides, she doesn’t need a midwife. If she is with child, she needs someone to get it out of her. 

“But I can help you,” she says. 

“Why?”

“I saw you in my flames. You have a role to play, Sansa of House Stark.”

Jon warned her that the woman talked a lot about what she saw in the flames. Sansa doesn’t care. 

“Lay down,” she says, gesturing to the bed. “It won’t hurt, and it will take a moment.”

Sansa complies. She flinches. She can’t help it when Melisandre touches her abdomen. The woman asks her to spread her legs and enquires about the eventual symptoms of pregnancy. She feels like she can breathe easier when she realizes that she hasn’t experienced any of the symptoms she describes. 

“You are not with child.” she says, “But there is damage, tearing. It needs to be healed. I will give you a salve for the bruising and the tearing. You must still be in a great deal of pain. I can help you with that.”

“I’m used to pain,” Sansa replies. 

“Nonetheless, I can give you something for the scars, the ones you can see and the ones you carry inside.”

“Why?” she asks. 

“I serve R’Hllor. I serve Jon Snow. You are dear, precious to him.”

Precious. She thinks. She ignores how her heart beats faster at the woman’s words and asks, “What do you want in return?”

“Nothing, my Lady.” The woman, whose beauty is almost scary, says, “You need a united North to have a chance at the great war that is coming. You gave Jon Snow a purpose. He was lost before you  arrived.”

She doesn’t comment on Melisandre’s words on Jon. She thanks the woman, who tells her she will have a salve, and a tincture ready for her in the afternoon. 

Jon was lost. Those words haunt her as she sews in her chambers before the meeting with Ser Davos, Tormund and Brienne. Her sworn shield will leave later that day. 

She realizes she’s embroidering direwolves on the cloak and closes her eyes for a moment. Jon was lost, but so was she. They’re finding their way back together. 

Jon was lost, and she will do whatever she needs to protect him, just as Jon is doing the same for her. 

It’s - more than having the same blood in their veins. It’s something stronger than she has ever felt, and she can only swear to herself that she will be there with Jon. For him. Whatever he needs. 

“We can’t defend the North from the Walkers and the South from the Boltons,” Jon says. 

This is their first war council. and Sansa belongs there. And it’s not just because she is the one who has been pushing him to fight back for their home, but because she knows the enemy.

And because he wants her there. Right before they started, they exchanged glances. Sansa’s face was a blank mask, unlike the woman he spoke to last night, but she shook her head after her meeting with Melisandre. 

There is no baby. If there were, and Sansa chose to keep it, Jon could see himself teaching Sansa’s son or daughter what their fathers taught them. For some bizarre reason, the previous night, he saw himself raising Sansa’s child with her, being a father to a child. Even Ramsay Bolton’s child. 

And he didn’t lie to her. She would have his full support whatever she chose to do. 

There is no baby, however, and he hopes it does something to lessen Sansa’s nightmares. 

He also tells the truth in the War Council. They cannot fight the enemy in the North, and they cannot fight the one in the South. They don’t have the men. 

“If we want to survive, we need Winterfell, and to take Winterfell, we need more men!”

There is something boiling inside himself. Ramsay Bolton has his brother. He has his home, he tortured Sansa, and all the weariness and hesitation he has felt for the past days have eclipsed. He will fight for Winterfell, for his father’s memory, for his living siblings, for Sansa.

He would do everything for Sansa. 

“Aside from the Starks and the Boltons, the most powerful houses in the North are the Umbers and the Karstarks and the Manderleys.” Ser Davos says, moving the pieces on the board. 

Jon knew it was coming, and he also knew that Sansa hoped to rally many men to take Winterfell back. She told him she knew the losses in the North were great after Robb’s war, but the Boltons and the Freys butchered the North at the Red Wedding. She asked him who would avenge that horrible night. Who, if not them?

“I was beaten every time Robb won a victory. Joffrey made a spectacle of it. He made a spectacle of Robb’s death. I want them to pay, Jon!” she told him early in the morning before they broke their fast together. 

His blood boiled in his veins, hearing her speaking so casually about what happened to her in King’s Landing. She is right; however, no one has avenged the Red Wedding. It’s up to them. He doesn’t think he will ever forgive himself for not doing anything to help his family. He can only take Winterfell back for them. He will. He has to. 

“The Umbers and the Karstarks have already declared for the Boltons, so we are not doing so well there.” Ser Davos says

“The Umbers gave Rickon to the enemy. They can hang.” Sansa says. 

Jon looks at her: she is looking at the map, and there is nothing of the child he used to see in Winterfell. She is hard, cold and painfully beautiful, even in her anger. 

Where does that thought come from? He blinks, focusing on her words, on the keen mind behind them. 

“But the Karstarks declared for Ramsay without knowing they had another choice.” she continues. 

The daughter fleeing from her mad husband and the bastard. Jon thinks. Would the Karstarks choose them? They should.

Ser Davos is quick to tell her - and him - that the Karstarks will not side with them.  

  He gives his counsel. Even if he knows what the most powerful families in the North are. He grew up in the North, in Winterfell. Karstarks, Umbers, Manderleys, are familiar names to him. 

It hurts, and it angers him that the Karstarks and the Umbers have declared for the Boltons. Karstarsk and Starks are kin. And the Umbers  - 

Damn, Robb and the way he burnt centuries of loyalty to the ground while fighting his war. He lost his allies, he lost the North - and he left Sansa in King’s Landing. 

Jon misses Robb. He loves his brother, but his mistakes – Sansa paid for them with her own body. And now, gathering men to drag Ramsay Snow back to hell might be more arduous than he thought. 

“Perhaps you are right, Ser Davos.” she concedes. She sighs and adds, “but we have a saying here: the North remembers. They will remember their loyalty to my family.”

“They may well be loyal, m’lady, but how many of them rose against the Boltons when they betrayed your family?”

Sansa used to love poems, play with dolls, and sew beautiful clothes like flowers blooming among the grey of Winterfell. When she talks about the North, Jon feels almost like it’s their father speaking. She is wearing a plain grey gown and is pale, but the steel beneath her soft voice is impossible to miss. 

She was terrified of being with child, after a nightmare the night before. There were no pretences when she asked him to sleep in her chambers. She was real, and his heart ached for her. 

He can’t take his eyes off of her now. Sansa is unafraid, determined. He would kill every Bolton man himself and rip Ramsay apart for her. It’s scary. It’s exhilarating. 

“Jon is going to convince them to fight alongside him. They need to believe it’s a fight they can win!” Ser Davos says. 

His words shake him from his thoughts, and he rallies back to the fight. To what he can do. He is not a brother of the Watch any more; he is the bastard of Winterfell, and he will fight for his home. 

“There are more than three other houses in the North: Glover, Mormont, Cerwin, Maizin, Hornwood; two dozens more. Together, they equal all the others. We can start small and build.”

It can work. 

“The North remembers,” she repeats, “they remember the Stark name. People will still risk everything for it, from White Harbour to Ramsay’s own door.” 

It breaks his heart to see that she has unwavering faith in her name, in their father’s. He knows how Ned Stark died. He knows he was accused of treason and that she had to live among those people. She told him she had to lie. She had to swallow her love for her family in order to survive. 

He hears the pride in her voice. Did she have to hide for all those years while being at the mercy of a boy king and his cruel mother? Did she have to lie even in her own home and conceal her love for their family? It was no wonder that she had lied to him. He couldn’t begrudge her that. 

Sansa believes that the North will come running under the banner of the direwolf. He isn’t as sure, but he will fight for her beliefs. 

“I don’t doubt it,” Ser Davos replies to her, “but Jon doesn’t have the Stark name.”

“No, but I do,” Sansa says. There is no contempt for him. She is just stating a fact. Sansa, Ned Stark’s trueborn daughter, will stand by his side, call the banners, and rally them against her husband. 

He is still looking at her - hasn’t really stopped since she started talking - when she adds, “Jon is every bit Ned Stark’s son as Ramsay is Roose Bolton’s.”

It’s the first time he hears Sansa say those words. On the few occasions she had to address him when they were children, he was always the “half-brother”, the “baseborn brother”. Sansa would never disappoint her Lady mother. She doesn’t seem to care now. She has not cared whose side of the marital bed he was born into since they reunited. 

Only then does Sansa tell Ser Davos about Riverrun, and she lies to the man, just like she lied to him. They decided to keep the possibility of having the Knights of the Vale between themselves. 

He doesn’t want Sansa to owe Petyr Baelish. He doesn’t know the man, but he despises the way he has used her. She seems not to be afraid of him, but he can’t let her put herself into the man’s hands again. 

He needs to protect Sansa. 

It feels like the most important thing for him now. It’s even more important than taking Winterfell back. Sansa was alone in nests of vipers and at the hands of her beast of a husband. She will not be harmed again. She will not be ill-used again. Not as long as he draws breath. 

Brienne doesn’t want to leave her in Castle Black. She has not said a word so far, perhaps because she didn’t expect her to send her to the Riverlands. But who else can she send?

She tells her that ravens could be intercepted, and she doesn’t trust couriers. She trusts Brienne. It also serves the purpose of making Littlefinger know that she is alone, apparently defenceless and if her uncle refuses to send men, he will be more likely to send the Knights of the Vale if she asks for them. 

Perhaps she won’t need to. Perhaps the smaller houses of the North and the Manderleys will join them. Perhaps they will have enough men to oppose her husband, and she can cut her ties to Baelish.

Deep down, she thinks it will not be the case. 

For years, in King’s Landing, she had to forget where she came from and the pride she had for her family. She had to call her father, mother and brother traitors. She was humiliated, stripped naked in court in front of everyone and beaten when Robb won battles. 

Her blood sang for them, for her home country defeating the Lannisters - her dreams to marry a southern prince and have his babies had turned to ash, only Sansa Stark remained. She had missed her home. She had missed the loyalty in the North. 

And maybe she is still that stupid girl deep down, at least judging by what Ser Davos said. But she needs to believe that millennia of loyalty to her house, that the love her father inspired in his bannermen, cannot have disappeared. 

She knows the world is not a story from a book: it’s harsh, cruel, and unfair. Monsters have taken her home. Is it so wrong that she hopes that others will see her as well and join them in their fight?

Brienne, however, is uncertain. 

“It has to be you,” she says when she enters her chamber. 

Brienne has stopped talking, and she is now looking at her. The woman is the truest knight she has ever met. She is honourable and kind, but she is also set in her ideas. 

“What is it?” Sansa asks. 

“I don’t like leaving you alone,” she replies. 

“With Jon?”

“No, not Jon. He seems trustworthy. He seems to care for you.” she says, and Sansa isn’t sure she likes how she said the last words. Brienne was there the night before, talking about things being proper, when she asked Jon to be with her when she was so scared that she couldn’t see straight. 

“The others, though. Davos and the Red Woman helped a man murder his own brother with blood magic.”

Sansa clenches her jaw. She doesn’t like Lady Melisandre. Even if she will see her later to retrieve the salve and the tincture she made for her, she can’t say she trusts Ser Davos, but Jon does. It is enough for her. 

 She believes Brienne, however. She is not wrong.  

“And when Stannis paid for his crime, where were they? Already out looking for a leader with better prospects! And that Wildings fellow with the beard…”

“Jon isn’t Tormund. Jon isn’t Davos, the Red Woman or Stannis, for that matter. Jon is Jon. He’s my brother. He’ll keep me safe. I trust him.”

For some reason, none of the words she said to Brienne are lies. Jon is unlike anyone she has ever met. She knows, and she feels it in her gut, that Jon will do whatever he can to keep her safe. And she trusts him. 

She kept the last truth in her heart for days, scared and exhilarated.  There is no part of her that doesn’t trust Jon: her mind, moulded into a weapon by the people who raised her; her body, filled with scars and still aching wounds; and her heart.

Jon is her brother.

Yes. He is. But he is also more than that. And Sansa knows that if she were to look too closely into that statement, she would find a lie or something not quite right. 

She doesn’t look too closely, not with Brienne there. 

“Then why did you lie to him when he asked you about Riverrun?” Brienne asks. 

“Jon knows the truth. The lie was not for him. I trust Jon. I don’t know Ser Davos. The less he knows, the better.”

“What did he say about Littlefinger?” Brienne asks. She heard the words she told Baelish about Ramsay and what he did to her. She knows he sold her to the Boltons. 

“He doesn’t want me to be in his debt,” she says. It’s still hard for her to tell the truth, but Brienne is honourable, and she saved her life. 

Brienne nods at her words. 

“We need all the men we can get, Brienne. I’ll be safe, I promise.”

“Very well, my lady.”

Brienne leaves, and Sansa lets out a breath. She needs to see the Red Woman, and she still has things to do before they leave Castle Black. 

She wants to spend time with Jon. She wants to thank him for being with her the previous night. She didn’t have any more nightmares, and his support calmed the fear and turmoil inside of her. 

He is her brother. 

Is familial love making her heart drum in her chest at the idea of spending time with him? What kind of sister is she? What is happening to her?

It’s the second time she has been in Lady Melisandre’s chamber that day. The relief she felt when the woman told her she wasn’t with child was staggering. She used to dream of having babies. There was also a time when she dreamed of calling her son Rob. 

A child with Ramsay would either be a Snow or a Bolton. But even if it were a Stark, it would be her husband’s blood. The blood of a madman, who climaxed when she begged for him to stop, crying and bloodied. He used her like a whore in a brothel. She could not have had a child from that man. 

She knows she can face the next nightmare now. And the Red Woman talked about tinctures for the scars people cannot see. What did she mean?

Two jars and a small bottle are on the table. Lady Melisandre is standing by the hearth. What is she seeing in the flames? The woman is dangerous, but she is not scared of her. She is not a queen of anything; she doesn’t want a throne; she just wants to go back home. 

“You came.” Lady Melisandre says.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I thought you might be wary of me.”

“You brought Jon back,” she says.  “I don’t know what I would have done if -“

“You would have carried on. The wounds inside of you would have festered until nothing was left of you.”

“I would have given up,” she admits. 

Lady Melisandre smiles at her words and says, “You do not give up, lady Sansa. Even when your heart wants you to, like when your mother and brother were killed.”

How does she know?  Does she know that she cried herself to sleep and looked outside of the windows in her chamber, wondering whether the fall would be quick?

She survived, with her shame, with her scars and anger. 

“Did you see it in the flames?” she asked. 

Lady Melisandre nodded. “I don’t know why my God shows me what he does.”

The woman gets up from her place before the hearth and gets close to her. She doesn’t ask her to sit, and Sansa doesn’t want to. 

The Red Woman takes the smaller jar and tells her, “This is for the tearing and pain in your private parts. A maester should have seen to them.”

“Can I still have children?” she asks. 

“They will rule the North one day. They will be borne out of love.”

Sansa blinks. Love ? What does she know about love? She doesn’t know how to love any more. She doesn’t want to. She doesn’t imagine herself being in love. She doesn’t imagine herself having children. She doesn’t want another husband. She doesn’t want to be sold again, to marry someone she doesn’t know, which, with some luck, might not be a complete monster like Ramsay. 

“Apply it in the morning and the evening. It will burn a little. But it will heal you.” the Red Woman says. She then shows the other jar to her, “For your scars. This cannot do anything for the old ones, but it will ease the pain of the new wounds. Apply it in the evening before you go to bed.”

“I am used to pain,” she says. She already told her in the morning. 

“And you are proud of that. But you hate what your husband did to you.”

She does. She doesn’t mind the scars from King’s Landing much. Every scar is one of the battles Rob won against the Lannisters. She cannot wield a sword; she knows nothing about war, but those scars made her feel like she had fought alongside her brother for the Northern Independence against Joffrey. Those scars reminded her that despite the pretty songs she sang, she was still a Stark.

What Ramsay did to her - it disgusts her. Even when there was no pain and no blood, he made her feel filthy, and there were always bruises on her hips, on her thighs, on her forearms. 

She hates those scars. She would be glad to see them disappear, as unlikely as it is. She is used to pain, but those wounds remind her of her husband, and she wants him erased in any way. Nothing will be left of Ramsay Bolton and his name and legacy when she is done if things work. 

If not, she has a vial of poison in the pocket of her dress. She always brings it with her since she bought it in town. It’s nothing exotic. An old woman sold it to her, and she guaranteed it would work. If they fail, she will drink the poison. She isn’t afraid to die. Living is a far scarier idea. 

Melisandre shows her the small bottle. “For the scars you keep inside. Never more than two drops, my lady. You won’t remember your dreams. Your ghosts will not haunt you at night.”

“I - I don’t want it. They gave me something when my  fa- when I was in King’s Landing. I don’t like how it made me feel.”

“This will only help. It tastes bitter, but it keeps the ghosts of the past away.”

“I don’t want to keep them away,” she replies.

It’s the truth: she hates her nightmares. She hates that Joffrey didn’t die in them and points his crossbow at her and fires it sometimes. She hates that Ramsay always finds her and terrorizes her. 

She cannot forget. If she forgets, she will make mistakes. The ghosts of her past can crack her heart open, especially when she sees her dear father, her lady mother and her siblings in her sleep, but it’s a price she is willing to pay. She owes it to them never to forget. 

Melisandre nods but says, “Keep it. You might change your mind one day.”

“We are leaving tomorrow,” she says, “and Jon already knows about my nightmares.”

“He has his own demons, as well, my lady.”

She blinks at her words. Jon may look tired, but he also always looks strong. Was she the usual, selfish Sansa who didn’t notice that someone close to her was hurting?

“What demons?” she asks.

“It’s not my story to tell, my lady. But I told you this morning. Before you came here, he was lost.”

She nods. She doesn’t want to hear any more. She has things to do, and she wants to see Jon. They haven’t talked since morning.

“There are many wounds in your heart, my lady. I believe you were lost too before you came here.”

She doesn’t reply. Yes, she was lost. She was half-dead inside. Jon is bringing her back, bit after bit. And she wants to help him in any way she can. 

Sansa’s hair is loose on her shoulders. The light from the hearth makes it almost like fire, a halo around her pale face that has Jon unable to move. 

The room is dark and warm, like a cocoon. He thinks it’s snowing outside, but he doesn’t care. 

Sansa is standing in front of him. She is taller than him. She always was, even when they were children. 

Her hands are cradling his face. It’s soft, gentle. She is not smiling. She is looking at him. He believes he could stay like that forever, for there is no scrutiny in Sansa’s blue eyes, no contempt, nothing but acceptance. Love, even. 

Her other hand is above his heart. There are scars underneath his tunic, which are jagged and not healing. They don’t hurt any more. Only the memory of that night does. 

“Your heart,” she says, her voice is low, soft. “It’s beating so fast.”

“For you,” he says. It’s the truth. He knows it in his bones. He should be horrified by that. He should beg her forgiveness and ask her to leave. 

He is rooted to the spot. He doesn’t want Sansa to leave. Ever. 

Mine. She is mine. A voice that he barely recognizes as his own says, in his mind, in his heart, in his blood. 

“Can you feel mine?” she asks. 

He swallows and reaches to her, placing a hand above her heart. It’s beating so fast, like a drum.

“It’s you,” she says. Her voice, her words go straight to his cock. He feels it harden in his breeches, and Sansa is so close that she will feel it, too. She will think he is a monster, no different from Joffrey Baratheon or Ramsay. 

Sansa doesn’t step back. If anything, she seems to be burrowing closer to him.

Yes. He wants that. She should live inside his skin so that he could keep her safe. She is his.

“We -” he trails off.

“We are here. We are the only ones that matter,” she says, taking his other hand in hers, interlacing fingers, her face a breath away from his. She has lovely lips. He wants.

He wants so much that he can taste it. 

He trails his hand up from her heart to the soft skin of her neck, his fingers thirsty for her skin. Her nape is warm, and her silky hair tickles his skin. 

Sansa blinks. 

“I will never hurt you.” He says. He promises. It is an oath. He will die before he hurts her. 

“I know,” she replies. Her cheeks are pink. She licks her lips; her pupils are blown. 

“Tell me to go away,” he says. 

“I don’t want you to go.”

“Tell me to stop right now.”

She shakes her head and leans even closer. The first touch of his lips on her is like the first snow he remembers. He fills him with the same wonder. His heart is pounding in his chest. Her lips are soft and sweet. 

The second taste of her lips makes him unsteady on his legs. She parts her lips and invites him in; their fingers are still interlaced, she is wrapping her free arm against his waist, he is cradling the nape of her neck, and he is glad that there is nothing after death, but he would burn in whatever hell the gods chose for him, to have that. 

Hot, slow, their bodies pressed flush against each other. Sansa frees their joined hands to card her fingers through his hair. His cock throbs, but he ignores it, lost in her. She kisses him back, all fire and sweetness. They stumble back against one of the chairs. He sits on it, bringing Sansa on his lap, astride him. 

“What are we doing?” he wonders aloud. 

Sansa smiles but doesn’t reply. 

It doesn’t matter that it’s wrong. It cannot be wrong. It feels right. It feels like he is hers, and she is his. Strangers who met a few days before, a connection that he felt in his heart from the moment he held her in his arms. 

Names, roles, it doesn’t matter. They are together. 

She moans in his kiss when his hands trail down and are on her hips.

“What is this?” she pants. Her cheeks flushed. 

“Us. Together,” he replies. 

She rocks her hips, seeking friction against the bulge in his breeches, and he kisses her again. 

They are wearing too many clothes. He doesn’t dare to undress her, though. Not until she says something. Sansa is moving above him while their kiss deepens. He wants to touch her skin, make her peak, and cry out his name. 

His hips rock, and he sees how Sansa is rocking hers harder, soft “oh” escaping from her lips when they are not kissing. 

“More,” she says, she sounds shy. He smiles and kisses her again while his hands go under her skirts, tracing the wool of her stockings with his fingertips, letting out a sigh when he touches the bare skin of her thighs. 

She stills, looking at him, confusion on her face and her eyes. 

“More,” he says. “are you sure?” 

She nods, shifts a little to give him room under her skirts and braces her hands on his chest. 

Her smallclothes are damp. His mouth is dry, and he feels his cock throbbing and leaking. 

He gently pushes away her smallclothes, and Sansa startles. He kisses her again. His tongue tastes her, and he would do it forever if he could. 

She doesn’t recoil at his touch. She shivers in his arms when he teases her folds. She is already so wet, and Jon bites back a groan. Sansa is shy, but she places soft, tentative kisses on the side of his neck, tugging at his tunic and slipping her fingers underneath the collar to touch him.

She is tight when he enters a finger inside of her. She gasps in his arm and he loves the way her cheeks are pink and her lips part in surprise when he starts teasing the bundle of nerves in her sex with his thumb. 

She moves faster, then, and he desperately misses the feeling of her body undulating over his, but he likes the sounds she makes too much to really care.

“Jon,” she moans, drooping an arm around his shoulders, pressing even closer to him, moving up and down on his finger. She arches her back when he adds another and goes faster into her, pressing against her clit until she silently shudders in his arms and seeks his lips again and again.

She feels her hot breath against his face and whispers, “What was that?”

“Pleasure.” he rasps.

She traces with her fingers his length through his trousers and says, “We can - I want to.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. 

“Will it be like this?” she asks.

“Better, I hope.”

Sansa nods, and he almost spills in his pants like a boy when she helps him out of his clothes. 

He is not sure he can still think. He feels lightheaded, and the throbbing between his legs is in rhythm with his heart.

Sansa doesn’t touch him. She is still on his lap; he can smell her pleasure, and he can’t believe it is happening. 

He kisses her again. He doesn’t think he will ever tire of it. He doesn’t want to stop kissing her, and she sighs into his mouth, her tongue dancing with his while she shifts above him, lifting her skirts so that he can see the milky expanse of her toned thighs. She hovers over him, and he can’t resist the temptation to tease her folds with the tip of his cock. She gasps, and he repeats the motion. 

He wants her out of those clothes. He wants to kiss her skin, lick her nipples and kiss her breasts. He is thirsty for her skin. He needs her. 

She jerks her hips when he teases her again, and he gently stills her and guides her until he is sinking into her. 

He is lost. Her velvety, wet tightness engulfs him, and he tries to be still. He feels breathless. She lets out a throaty “Gods,” and their eyes lock. 

She is his. She will always be his. They will take their home back, and she will be safe. He will slaughter death itself to protect her. 

He is hers. She is the light that lit up his life when nothing made sense, and he didn’t even feel real anymore. 

She moves, and he grips her hips. He cannot stop looking at her, drinking her in, loving every sound she makes, every ragged breath she takes. Her hair is a red halo around her shoulders, and she looks at him as if he meant everything to her. 

She moves up and down his length, drawing moans from his lips, and she does the same. He thrusts into her tentatively at first. He doesn’t want to hurt or scare her, and when she meets his movements with her own, it’s like a dance. 

She touches his face, tracing his jaw and lips with her fingers. Her other hand is on his chest, the fingers underneath the collar of his tunic. 

Harder, faster, hot, tight. He shifts her slightly so that the angle builds pressure in her core and on her clit, and her movements grow more frantic, her breath laboured. He can see beads of perspiration on her temples, and he can feel it on the back of his neck. 

His hand moves between them, rubbing her, and he looks down, for a moment, at where their bodies are joined, and it only makes him thrust harder into her. She arches her back, her nails digging into his skin, and she lets out a “Yes, now, yes!” before she shudders again in his arms, her walls fluttering against his cock, pushing him to the edge.

He closes his eyes for a moment when he reaches his climax, but when he opens his eyes, she is looking at him, and he draws her closer to him. 

“Don’t leave me,” she pleads.

“I will never leave you,” he swears. He closes his eyes and kisses her forehead. 

He feels her loss when he opens his eyes like a physical blow. He is in the crypts in Winterfell, wearing black, and no voices are telling him he doesn’t belong there. 

There is a shadow he can make out of the half-lit galleries. 

“She is mine, bastard,” the shadow says. “She was mine first. She will be mine when I kill you.”

The shadow takes a step forward. He can hear hounds barking. 

“I will take her back, pass her around my soldiers because she is mine to share. She is my bride. I will make you watch before I kill you, bastard.”

“I will kill you,” he says. 

“You can try. Everyone will know you lust after her, bastard. We are the same, you and I!”

No. Ramsay Snow - Bolton, whatever he calls himself, doesn’t belong in the crypts of Winterfell. He will not have Sansa again. They are not the same. 

“We are not.”

“Aren’t we?”

He can see the hounds now. They’re snarling and coming toward him. He needs to fight. He needs to find Sansa. Where is she?

“Where is Sansa?”

“She will never be yours. Don’t be stupid.”

He sees another shadow, now, kneeling next to the one Ramsay has. 

Sansa is there. There is blood on her face and a dog collar around her neck. She is wearing rags, and her eyes are empty at the sockets.

“She doesn’t need eyes to bear me a babe. I only need her cunt. I will fill her with my seed, she will have a babe or two, and then I will have her spread over in the courtyard, where everyone can have her. You failed, bastard. You will always fail!”

“Sansa!” he screams. 

Sansa didn’t move. She was kneeling at Ramsay’s feet while the hounds were getting closer and closer. 

“I’m coming to you, I swear!” he screams. 

He has no sword, he has nothing to defend himself with, and the hounds are surrounding him now. 

He screams when he feels sharp fangs in his arms. He screams while he hears Ramsay Bolton laugh and Sansa cry. 

The last thing he sees is the blood on Sansa’s face as she is crying. 

He wakes up with a start, the furs tangled around his legs, sweat cooling off on his skin. He can feel his heart lodged in his throat. He can still feel everything about his dream. His stomach is sticky with his seed, and he feels a phantom pain in his arms and legs where the hounds bit him. 

Sansa.

She is alright, safe, and no one will touch her in Castle Black. Brienne and Pod are outside her door. Tormund likes her because she is kissed by fire like him. He told her that some of his men would keep watch that night and every night after that until Ramsay Bolton was dealt with. 

She is safe. He did not sully her. 

She was in his room earlier that night, she asked him about his murder. She told him that they were all that was left until Arya, Bran and Rickon were returned to them. 

“You can talk to me,” she said, one hand on his face, caressing it, the other on his chest. 

“You are not alone, Jon,” she added. She didn’t say they are family. She was just there, offering comfort.

She was ethereal, beautiful and he knows he is not supposed to think of her in those terms. He knows she would be horrified and believe him another monster were she to find out about his desires. 

He cannot make sense of what he feels. He thought he knew what shame was. He is a bastard, the only stain in the life of the most honourable person he has ever met. He has strived all his life to prove everyone wrong about him. 

He would never hurt Sansa. He will deal with what he is feeling, and he will protect Sansa. She doesn’t need another monster in her life, one who is her brother. It doesn’t matter that they were not close as children. 

It doesn’t even matter that he has seldom thought about her since he left Winterfell. 

It cannot be. It can never be. 

He will take Winterfell back for her and then leave. He will fight against the Others and make sure she is safe. If the gods are good, he will die again. 

Why was he brought back? Was it to have lustful feelings for his sister? Did death twist him that much?

She deserves more. Even if he weren’t his brother, he would still be a motherless bastard. 

He has never been allowed to forget his place. He cannot give her anything. Even if he suspects she already has him. 

In his dream, which felt so vivid and real, she pleaded with him not to leave her. He doesn’t think he can, even if it is the right thing to do when they take Winterfell back. 

He doesn’t know whether he is strong enough to do that. 

He doesn’t know if he wants to. 

They are leaving Castle Black. He hasn’t slept since his dream. He hasn’t even checked on Sansa, feeling too raw to be close to her. He has avoided her not breaking their fast together as they have since she sought refuge at the Wall. 

She approaches him. He notices immediately that she is wearing a new cloak and dress and holding another cloak in her hands. 

“New dress?” he asks. She is beautiful, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. 

She looks like a maiden from a tale, but he knows she is much more than that. Sansa Stark is a fighter and a survivor. She may not yield a sword or a spear, but he has no doubts she can wage war on Ramsay Bolton and win it. 

“I made it myself. Do you like it?” she asks.

She looks well-rested, and the blue of her dress suits her. She used to love pretty dresses when she was a child. It’s good to see her wearing those clothes and not the ones she has been wearing, and he has to refrain from staring at her. If he does, he is sure images from the first part of his dream will come back and haunt him. 

He looks, noticing the wolves stitched over her breast. She is a Stark of Winterfell. She is reclaiming her identity. He is proud of her. He babbles about liking “the wolf bit” of her dress, and despite everything, he can’t stop smiling, and she is doing the same. She doesn’t know. She can’t imagine what lurks in his mind. 

“Good, because I made this for you,” she says and hands him a cloak with direwolves embroidered in it. “I made it like the one father used to wear, as near as I can remember.”

She made a cloak for him, one like the one their father used to wear. The embroidery is perfect, and he can’t believe she took the time to do that. He can’t believe she truly cares. 

“Thank you, Sansa,” he says. He feels transparent in that moment, as if everyone could read right through him. 

It’s a beautiful cloak made by a beautiful woman who wants him to feel like part of the family and wants the people in the North to know he is a Stark, if not in name, at least in blood. 

It’s a gift from his sister, and his heart is thundering in his chest. Her gift moves him.   

“You’re welcome,” she says, totally oblivious of what that gesture is doing to him, to the bastard of Winterfell who always dreamed of being a Stark, to the man who cares too much about her and not in the way a brother should. 

He fastens the new cloak in place of the old right away. And then, a few minutes later, after he says goodbye to Edd, he leads the way for their party outside Castle Black. 

The war against the Boltons has started. 

He might have already lost the one in his heart, but Sansa doesn’t need to know that.

Chapter Text

299 C.A. The Red Waste

The night is very cold. It isn’t really a relief after the sweltering temperatures they face during the day. Daenerys sometimes feels like she is dooming her khalasar and her dragons. They cannot stop, however. They cannot go back. They can only move forward, hoping that something better will be waiting for them. 

There is a fire, and for once, there are no men around it. She can’t even see the guards. They are all exhausted, hungry and thirsty. The men are probably trying to save their energies. She can’t sleep—the loss of Drogo and Rhaego weighs on her. 

There is a small part of her, one that lives in the dark recess of her heart, that didn’t truly care whether the eggs would hatch or not in the fire. She was born again after that night, but she cannot forget her child. She cannot forget that for a brief time, she was happy. 

She is a Khaleesi. She will be the Queen of Westeros one day - she cannot be weak. She cannot afford the luxury of grieving for her losses.

It’s quiet that night, and she closes her eyes for a moment, hoping for the cold to make her sleepy. She hears footsteps behind her, and she immediately recognizes who they belong to. 

Ser Jorah Mormont. Her knight is her strength. She owes him her life twice over and he is crossing the Red Waste with her, reminding her with words and deeds that she is a Targaryen and the true heir to the Iron Throne. 

“Khaleesi,” he says. 

She turns and looks at him. He is sunburnt, his blonde hair is longer than when they met at the wedding, and his beard is untrimmed. Jorah’s blue eyes seem darker, somehow. There is something in the man’s posture, in the way he is looking at her, that is clearly worrying him. 

“Ser Jorah,” she says. She pats the seat next to her, silently inviting him to sit. If Jorah is worried about something, it’s her duty to dispel those thoughts. Jorah has been by her side for so long, and she cares about him. 

Jorah sits beside her and looks up at the sky for a moment before saying, “You cannot see the bleeding star any longer.”

She nods, even if she doesn’t understand why he would want to talk about the stars. He is a practical man, a quality she holds in high regard. 

“Is something the matter, Ser Jorah?” she asks, looking at him. 

Jorah holds her gaze, even if she still sees worry in his eyes. 

“I need to tell you something, Khaleesi.” he says, “You will not like it.”

“Is everyone all right?” she asks. 

“Aye. It’s not about the khalasar. It’s about me.” 

“Are you all right, ser Jorah? Are you hurt somewhere?” she asks, ignoring the sliver of panic she can feel in her heart at the idea of him being hurt, of losing him as well.

Drogo died because of a stupid wound he ignored. She survived Drogo’s death. Everything in her tells her that should she lose Ser Jorah, she would be lost. It’s a thought that terrifies her. 

“I am fine, Khaleesi. But I am ashamed of myself,” he says. 

She doesn’t understand. Jorah is the most honourable man she has ever met. He is a true knight, and he swore himself to her long before she hatched her dragons. What is he ashamed of?

“As you know, Lord Stark condemned me to death for selling poachers. I didn’t flee his sentence because I was afraid of dying,”

“You are not afraid of that, I know,” she says in a low voice. 

“I could have taken the Black. Lord Stark probably expected that. But I  couldn't bear the idea of being parted from Lynesse. Men of the watch have no lands, take no wives and father no children,” he explains. He doesn’t look at her when he says, “I couldn’t do that, so I  disgraced my family, forsook  my honour, and I lost my wife anyway.”

“I will pardon you when I am Queen, and you didn’t forsake your honour, I can vouch for that,” she says, resting her hand on his shoulder for a moment. She will talk to Lord Stark, and he will have no choice but to accept the pardon for her knight. Westeros will know that Ser Jorah Mormont is a man with honour who repented for his mistakes.

“I was working in Pentos when the Spider, Varys, contacted me with an offer,” Jorah says. 

She takes back her hand and closes it in a fist against her thigh.  Doesn’t the Spider work for the Usurper? What did he ask Jorah?

“What did he offer?”

“A royal pardon in exchange for checking on the last Targaryens.” 

Daenerys blinks. She remembers the day she met Jorah. Everything about her wedding to Drogo is hazy, a blur of violence and pain, but she clearly remembers looking at the blonde man. She remembers his voice as he introduced himself to her. She remembers thinking that the blue of his eyes was like the clearest sky, the ones she remembered from her childhood. 

And he has been there, by her side every day, since then. He taught her Dothraki. He stood for her against Viserys, the first person in her life who ever did it, even before Drogo. 

Was it all a lie? 

“You accepted,” she says. 

“I didn’t know you. I wanted to go home.” 

“The wine merchant. Did you know about the poison?”

“I - I suspected.” he says, “I never knew what they meant to do, I swear!”

“The Usurper has been sending assassins after me since I was a babe!” she hisses. “ And you sent him information about me!”

“Aye, Khaleesi, I did.”

“He killed my brother and stole my father’s throne!”

“There was a rebellion. Your father killed the Warden of the North and his heir, and he asked for the Usurper’s head. Your brother kidnapped Lyanna Stark.”

“Are you saying that the Usurper was right? Is that how you justify yourself, ser?  

“No, Khaleesi. I have no excuses, but you must know what happened in Westeros if you want to be their Queen. ”

“Did you tell the Usurper I was pregnant? Is that why the wine merchant tried to poison me?”

Jorah nods his head, but he still looks at her. She can see the shame in his eyes. She can see the tears in them. 

“I did,” he says after a moment. 

“And did you get your pardon?” she asks. She hates him. She hates that he is breaking her heart and that she cares so much that she would rather not know. 

“Aye,” he says. He hands her a scroll. Her heart is drumming in her chest. She trusted Jorah. He was the only person she trusted implicitly, the one who knelt and whose words were the first her dragons ever heard. 

Blood of my blood. 

Was that a lie as well?

She reads the words on the scroll. She traces the Usurper’s signature with the pad of her fingers. Her eyes sting with unshed tears, but she won’t cry, not in front of the man who spied on her for the Usurper. 

“I don’t understand.” she says, “Are you still spying for the Usurper?”

“No, Khaleesi. I stopped months ago.”

“When you got your pardon.”

He nods his head. She looks at him. She thought she knew him, and even now, she can see honesty and shame in his eyes. He looks ashamed at what he did. Everything that happened after the wine merchant tried to poison her feels like a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. 

Would Drogo still be alive if there had been no attempt on her life? Would she have lost Rhaego and her womb to a curse?

She doesn’t know. She is too tired to be angry, disappointed, or hurt by his betrayal. Her heart breaks because Jorah Mormont has been her only constant for so long, and he lied to her. 

“Whatever punishment you see fit, I will accept, Khaleesi,” he says, breaking her train of thought. 

“Why did you tell me now?” she asks, hating how small her voice sounds. 

He hesitates a moment and then says in a low voice, “You told me I was your strength. You deserved to know. I pledged myself to you because I believe in you.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, hearing his words. Their bond, what she meant to him, the words that had lingered in her mind for months, the feelings she had sometimes caught a glimpse of in him, are loud now. They are in the open.

And he betrayed her from the first moment they met. He spied on her for the usurper. He had been granted a pardon for a job well done. 

“Leave me,” she says.

“Khaleesi,”

“Leave me. Don’t come close to me, don’t talk to me! When we cross the waste, I’ll decide your punishment.”

She could have him killed right then, leave his body in the Waste, food for carrion, but the mere idea of doing that makes her stomach twist in painful knots, and her heart ache. 

“Aye, Khaleesi.” There is a moment when he doesn’t speak. He looks at her, and she can’t help doing the same. She is still holding the scroll in her hand, the words that granted Jorah his royal pardon. 

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Part of her wants to lash out at his words. Is he sorry that her husband and son died? Is he sorry that he spied on her and made her believe in him?

She also hears the genuine remorse in his voice. And she knows that she will have more questions for him later when she can bear to look at him. When looking at him, it isn’t so painful, and tears don’t threaten to spill over her cheeks. 

Jorah leaves. She is alone under the stars. The cold air makes her shiver despite the fire near her.

Jorah betrayed her. It seems a contradiction in terms. Something that could never happen. Yet, she has proof in her hands - and she didn’t think she could hurt again so deeply after Drogo and Rhaego died.  

He betrayed her and received his Royal Pardon, but he didn’t leave. He could be in his beloved North now, he could be home, but he is still there. He is crossing the Red Waste with her, his presence and words giving her the strength to carry on. 

She doesn’t know what to think. She only knows that while part of her wants to hurt Jorah as much as his words hurt her, she doesn’t want him to die. He cannot die. 

She needs time to forgive him. She cannot lose her closest advisor. He might have spied on her, but his counsel has always been honest. He has always tried to further her cause. He protected her when no one else even considered it. 

Didn’t he carry her in his arms when her labour started? Wasn’t he the first person he saw when she came to?

Wasn’t he the first who knelt when the fire burned out, and she emerged from it with her children?

Time. She needs time. She is angry and heartbroken, but he came to her, told her the truth, and stayed by her side. 

It has to mean something, doesn’t it?

Vaes Dothrak 303 C.A. 

She knows Daario and Jorah are looking at her. She takes her time looking at her khalasar. Fire and blood are her family’s words. She is the Unburnt, and she proved it again. 

She can feel her heart beating frantically in her chest. When she turns, she will have to say goodbye to Jorah. Events have postponed that moment, but she knows now it’s coming. 

The infected man in the pyramid was supposed to touch her. They know that. The man confessed before she had him burned. The pretender’s widow sent men to kill her. They touched Jorah instead. The one infected with greyscale. 

He was supposed to leave - even though she didn’t want him to. They could not be parted. They have never been parted. 

I took your hand in that arena. It’s been weeks, and my skin has not cracked. Don’t leave me. She thinks. Even when she hated him for betraying her, he was always by her side. She didn’t want to say goodbye then. She doesn't want to say goodbye, now. 

She has to. 

She turns and spares a glance to the sellsword who bent the knee to her the night before. She knows Daario Naharis wants her. He doesn’t understand why she didn’t fall in bed with him. People don’t understand why she refused to marry to bring peace to Meereen. Diplomacy is not just about arranged marriages, she reminded Tyrion, who is obsessed with them. There can’t be anyone else for her. 

Dragons don’t need to explain themselves. 

She has never been a coward. She isn’t one now, so she looks at Jorah Mormont. He looked for her. He found the ring she left behind because there are few things she believes in as much as she believes in Jorah. She knew he would find her. He always does. 

He gave her the ring in the minutes they were alone. They always steal minutes. They have for years. Jorah insisted on the secrecy for her own good. She indulged him because she trusted him, and he would never do anything that endangered her.

She hates the secrecy, however. 

They steal minutes and whisper words in the dark when they can. 

“I knew you would find me,” she told him, holding the ring in her closed fist. 

“I knew you would save yourself,” he replied with a smile. 

Can I touch you? Can you hold me like the night we freed the Unsullied? She thought, in that tent, while the world outside was too loud. 

“I’ve had a very good teacher,” she replied. She was born a princess, but Jorah taught her how to be a warrior, how to lead armies. 

“You were born to rule, Khaleesi,”

Her arms ache to hold him. She is standing still, her eyes boring into his. He is her best friend. He is her general. He is her advisor. 

He is her love. Her heart. Her soul. 

She will burn Cersei Lannister for sending those men to her. 

“You look well,” she tells him. 

His features are so familiar, so loved. She has traced the lines of his face with her fingers many times. She kissed his lips, and his arms have held her for many nights since the first night in Qarth. 

Moments stolen, yes, but precious and cherished all the same.  

The blue of his eyes is clearer than the sky above them. He raises his arm and shows her the cracked skin on his forearm. It’s gotten worse. The last time she saw his arm, there was just a small grey patch of skin and a crack. 

“I must go,” he says.

Don’t. We will find a way together, she thinks, tears filling her eyes. She is sorry—so sorry— it should have been her. When she told him, before they knew for sure he was sick, he told her he was happy it was him. 

He is selfless, her Jorah, but his love can also be so selfish. He doesn’t want to see her hurt; he would die for her, but he never thinks that she can exist in a world without him. How is she supposed to breathe now?

“Remember what I told you,” she says, not caring about Daario and the way he is looking at them, as if he finally understands. Did Daario taunt Jorah while looking for them? Did Jorah let it all slide because he knows he must know he has her whole heart?

  “I will write,” he says. 

She takes a step forward toward him. He takes a step back. And her heart lurches in her throat. 

“Not just that, Ser,” she says. 

I forgave you when you betrayed me. Please don’t forsake me now. She thinks.  

“Aye, Khaleesi,” 

“You will find a cure, wherever it is in the world and heal yourself. You will come back to me,” she says. 

You will fight for us. You promised me you would. Do you remember that, Jorah? She thinks. 

He nods. Tears are glistening in his eyes now. She wants to touch him. She wants them to be somewhere else, anywhere but there, on that hill, saying goodbye to each other. 

“When I take the Seven Kingdoms, I need you by my side,” she says. Her voice is thick with the tears she cannot shed because of who they are: a Queen and her knight.

The truth is far more complicated than the roles they have, but even now that her heart is breaking and she thinks Jorah’s might as well, they cannot let the truth be seen. 

He nods at her words. She told him but a fraction of what he means to her, how vital he is to her. She wonders whether the throne of her ancestors is worth that mummer’s play. She doesn’t have the strength to truly look for an answer. 

She watches him leave. She let a ring fall, but she kept the other, the one with jade and onyx Jorah gave her in Meereen after Tywyn Lannister made his move against them and failed. It was a promise, at the time, that no one could ever try and part them.  

Her eyes are dry, and her heart breaks while she watches him leave. 

She remembers the night she finally forgave him for his betrayal. He came back for her, and she realized she didn’t care about his choices before he knew her. He stood by her side, and despite the words he sent to the Usurper, he saved her life.

Blood of my blood. 

They are. He is in her blood. She is in his. It’s as simple as that. 

And she doesn’t think she can go back to Meereen and deal with whatever she will find there without him. She keeps staring at his form, becoming smaller and smaller in the distance, thinking about the night she forgave him in Qarth. And all the moments after that. 

Come back to me, She thinks. She prays, even. 

She doesn’t believe in any Gods, but she is ready to pray to any of them to keep him safe and to have him return to her. 

She feels Daario looking at her. She knows she needs to return to Meereen and has work to do. The sellsword shows her some kindness, allowing her a few moments to grieve. 

“He will be back,” he says eventually when she looks at him. “He is too stubborn to die!”

His words are meant to reassure her, she thinks, but she blinks back new tears. 

“He volunteered to look for you. I tagged along, I hoped -” he trails off.

What did he hope? That she would see his valour and swoon? That she would find Jorah lacking and forsake him? It’s a preposterous idea. 

She belongs to Jorah. She has for a long time, perhaps even before the truth of what he meant to her became impossible to ignore any longer, and she stopped fearing her heart. Or, perhaps, it was when he made her see inside her heart, and she found him lodged there. 

They were happy for a short while. They were truly happy before Cersei Lannister sent the assassins. He was always by her side: as her general and confidante, as her unofficial Hand, as her friend. As her lover, at night, when no one could see them, she felt whole and safe in his arms. 

Does he know that she loves him? Suddenly, she can’t remember if she ever told him. She must have told him while in the throes of passion or after as they lay in each other’s arms. He must know because lately, she has done the bare minimum to hide her feelings. 

“He will,” she replies to Daario's words. 

She cannot accept another alternative. She made him swear that he would not end his life when they discovered he had been infected. She pleaded with him to live for them. He promised he would try. 

Jorah Mormont has never broken a promise to her. 

“We need to go,” Daario says. 

She nods. She is the Khaleesi of a big khalasar. She is the Queen of Meereen, a city in unrest the last time she was there. 

She doesn’t care about any of that in that moment. Jorah made a promise to her. She needs to remember that in order to breathe. She needs to remember that if she wants to be the Queen Meereen deserves. 

As they travel back with her khalasar, her mind wanders, and she remembers. Jorah’s absence keeps her heart in a vice.  

Her family’s words are fire and blood. Jorah’s, however, are: here we stand. 

Here we stand, she thinks, my love, until you come back to me.  

Chapter Text

Jon seems distant during their first days of travel. He accepted her gift, which made her glad. When she was in King’s Landing, she couldn’t embroider wolves and direwolves. Cersei and Joffrey would make her pay if she did. She was forced to repeat that she was the daughter and sister of traitors. There had to be no traces of the North in her. 

There is a part of her that thinks she deserved it all. Wasn’t she the one with songs in her head, never appreciating what she had and dreaming of princes and knights from tales? 

She loves the North with everything she is, noww. She understands why her father talked about it the way he did. She is proud of showing the wolves embroidered on her dress and being a Stark. 

Jon and her share a tent. It’s big enough for both of them, they rarely are in it at the same time except at nights, and someone told her it was for practical reasons. They are, after all, siblings. 

She doesn’t complain. It’s not like he doesn’t know about her nightmares, and they are usually so tired at night that they fall asleep on their cots after barely exchanging a few words.

She doesn’t complain about the sleeping arrangements. She doesn’t care about the long hours spent travelling on horses. It’s a campaign, she thinks; they’re rallying the men to oust Ramsay from Winterfell and have justice and vengeance. 

They are  Starks of Winterfell. She wants people to know that. 

Jon is not in the tent while she changes for the night. They have privacy, but he is outside talking to Ser Davos. Nevertheless, she is behind the partition, applying the balm Lady Melisandre gave her for her wounds and scars. It smells sweet and it’s cold on her skin, and it helps. The pain is not troublesome. The newest wounds are scabbing, and the skin is tender around them but not infected. 

She hasn’t had a handmaiden since Shae, and she has gotten good at tending her wounds and dressing for the night on her own. She finds comfort in the gestures. When she was with Ramsay, she was often locked in her chambers, wearing only her nightgown and without access to anything. He liked that she never knew when he would come, that there might be days of respite, and he would appear in the middle of the night and play with her. 

He called what he did to her “play”. 

“Let’s play a game, wife.” he would say, and she knew it would mean pain and blood. 

She traces a scar under her breast with the tips of her fingers, focusing on the texture of it, trying to banish him from her thoughts. She is determined to erase Ramsay. She may not erase her scars, but he will die. It’s one of the things that keeps her going.

They twisted her. She knows that. She should be horrified at her thoughts. She is not. She used to have a gentle, tender heart, but it’s all shards now, except for Jon. She doesn’t like that he is distant. She knows he has many things on his mind. She knows he feels responsible for their campaign, and he has decided to bear it all on his shoulders, but she wants to help. 

She wants to carry some of his burden. She misses the closeness they developed in Castle Black, and she doesn’t know what to do. 

She sighs, and she wears her nightgown, and brushes her hair. She smiles when she hears Jon and Ghost entering the tent. Ghost is often sleeping at her feet. Jon has cocked an eyebrow at them the first night it happened, but he hasn’t said anything. 

She approaches him as he is removing his cloak. He looks tired and worried. 

“Everything will be fine. Tormund is on our side,” she says. 

“They have two thousand men. We need them. And it’s not fair that we ask them to fight for us.” he says. 

“You fought for them. You died for them,” she says, resisting the urge to move closer to him. Why does she want to touch him so often? All she knows is that she finds herself wanting to touch his forearms and his shoulders or even take his hands in hers while they talk. It makes her heart beat fast in her chest, and it makes her feel good. She feels safe when she is with him, and touching him feels natural. 

He has removed his sword and placed it on the small table, and he sits on his cot with a sigh.

“It’s not the same, Sansa,” 

She takes another step and hovers over him for a second before deciding to sit next to him on the cot. 

“They need to know they will never be safe with Ramsay as Warden of the North. It’s their fight as well, Jon,”

Their thighs are brushing. Jon turns his head, he looks at her, and says, “It’s true, but it does not make me feel better,”

“Let them decide. They followed you once,”

“Because of the Others, not for my home.”

“As the Warden of the North, you will protect them. The other Houses will have to accept it,”

“The Karstarks and Umbers are already our enemies, so…”

“Yes, and they will pay for breaking faith with House Stark. Winter will come for them.”

“Father -”

She clasps her hands on her lap, not to touch him. 

“Father would be proud of you,” she says. She is sure of that. He would be proud of the man Jon has become. She is so proud of him that she feels her heart bursting with it. 

He shakes his head. “I broke my oaths, I lied, I killed men -”

“You did what you thought was right. You made peace with Wildings. I see the way Tormund listens to you.”

“You don’t care that I broke my oaths?”

“I broke mine as well. You are alive. That is all that matters to me.”

“Your husband is -”

“I still fled. I still broke my oaths in front of the Weirdwood Tree,”

He looks at her for a moment and then says, “You had to do that. I don’t think the Gods will blame you.”

“I’m not sure they exist anyway,” she whispers, looking at her hands. 

“I’m not sure either. There was only darkness where I went. Perhaps that was hell.”

“You don’t deserve hell. It’s for people like Joffrey, Cersei or Ramsay. Not you, never you.”

He looks at her; there is something that she can’t decipher in his eyes, and she notices they have gotten even closer on the cot. Ghost is watching them, his head tilted to the side, and she feels like there is something in the air; it’s ripe with something she can’t understand but makes her heart flutter in her chest. 

Is it the way he is looking at her? It’s so soft and sad, and she wants to take that sorrow away from him so badly. He has no idea how much his presence makes her stronger. He makes her believe there is still something good and decent in the world. How can he not see that? 

Neither of them speaks for a long moment, and then Jon’s hand reaches out to caress her face. His touch is gentle, hesitant, and she leans into it and closes her eyes for a moment. 

She wants more. 

They twisted and broke her, and there is something wrong with her—that’s the only explanation. She leans into his touch, but she wants more. She wants them to be closer. She wonders what it would be like to be in his arms again. What if she reached out and took his other hand in hers? 

In her mind, she sees Jon’s face inching closer and closer, their lips brushing, and it doesn’t disgust her. Her heart beats more strongly in her chest, and she feels butterflies in her stomach. 

There is something wrong with her. The worst thing is that she doesn’t care. 

She would spend the rest of her days in that tent with him, their thighs touching, his hand on her face, and hers seeking his. It would be sweet. It would be perfect. 

It should feel wrong, but it doesn’t. 

It should make her feel bad, but she can only look at Jon and wish that moment could span forever.  

Jon is a natural leader. She is watching him with the Wildings, and she can’t help admiring him. Everything in Jon talks about his honour. He would never ask people to fight for a battle he doesn’t mean to fight from the front lines himself. 

She remembers the broody child she used to know, and she sees the man he has become. She felt it when he took her in his arms and under his protection, no questions asked when she went to Castle Black, but this is different. 

Jon is beautiful, inside and out. She has her mask on, the one suited for a Lady in the North, and she is observing the meeting with the Wildings. She is not talking, and she isn’t needed there, which allows her to listen and observe him. 

Jon is the man Joffrey wished he was: brave, strong and loved by the people. No. That isn’t true. Joffrey didn’t care about the people. He only cared about himself. It’s clear Jon cares about those people. 

He inspires loyalty in the people: Ser Davos was Stannis Baratheon’s man, and he now follows Jon. He believes in him. Tormund is loud and brash; he heard Ramsay’s letter, but he is intensely loyal to her brother. He is at the meeting as well. 

Her heart is pounding in her chest. They need the Wildings. They don’t stand a chance without them. Ravens sent to the Manderleys have been unanswered; they will visit some of the keeps, but they cannot hope to mount an offensive without those two thousand men. 

“We swore to fight King Crow when the time comes, and we mean it,” one of the leaders of the Wildings is saying, “but this isn’t what we agreed to! These aren’t White Walkers. This isn’t an army of the dead. This isn’t our fight!”

“If he weren’t for him,” Tormund says, “none of us would be here, all of you would be meat in the Night King’s army, and I’d be a pile of charred bones just like Mance.”

She is breathless for a moment. It’s like being a child again and listening to the tales of Old Nan or reading about the knights of old. Jon - her Jon - did that. She wishes he would turn and look at her, but maybe it’s better that way. She isn’t sure she could keep her mask on. 

The Wildings are proud. She understands that they united against a great foe, and he can lead them all. She is sure of that. 

It feels like so long ago when Ramsay told her that Jon was Lord Commander of the Watch. She remembers the spark of hope his words brought, embers she couldn’t afford to nurture because nothing was more dangerous than hope. She didn’t even consider him or what he must have accomplished. That came later when he met him, and the child of her memories became the man she is getting to know. 

Now, she watches Jon with the people he helped. She feels useless, but she wants to be there. 

“The Boltons, the Karstarks, the Umbers, they know you’re here. They know that more than half of you are women and children. After they finish with me, they’ll come for you!”

He is clever. He is using the truth as leverage, except that they will defeat their enemies and he will be all right. She knows life is unfair, and good people die all the time. She will not lose him, however. It doesn’t matter if she needs to sell herself to Littlefinger. He will survive the war against Ramsay. 

“You’re right,” he says. “this isn’t your fight. You shouldn’t have to come to Winterfell with me, and I shouldn’t be asking you. It’s not the deal we made! I need you with me if we’re going to beat them, and we need to beat them if you’re going to survive!”

They need those men, but he is delivering a compelling argument about survival and about working together. He might not play the game the way she has been taught to, but he is far from naive or stupid. 

He told her he was tired of fighting, that he had fought and lost. 

He is fighting now. She hears the passion in his voice.

It’s the right thing to do. It’s not about me. She thinks, but a small part of her, one she cannot ignore, wonders if he is fighting for her, too. Perhaps to protect her besmirched virtue or because he is her brother.

Her heart swells and cracks in her chest.

No one fought for her. Sandor and Tyrion tried to protect her the best they could, Baelish coated his plans and interests in fake protection. 

No one has ever fought for her because she asked them to. 

“The crows killed him because he spoke for the Free Folk when no other Southerners would. He died for us. If we are not willing to do the same for him, we’re cowards! If that’s what we are, we deserve to be the last of the Free Folk!” Tormund says. 

She doesn’t know if the gods exist, not even the God of Light Lady Melisandre worships, but Jon's presence among them is nothing short of a miracle. And the mask she wears, the blank one she mastered in the Vale, feels too tight. 

The giant says, “Snow!” It looks like the matter is settled. Jon shakes hands with one of the leaders of the Free Folk—she will call them like they want to be addressed—and for a moment, she exchanges a glance with him. He is relieved. They have the men. 

“Are you sure they will come?” he asks Tormund. 

“We’re not clever like you Southerners. We’ll say we do something, we do it.”  

He turns and looks at her, “We have the Free Folk,”

“You did good,” she says

“I feel like I’ve condemned them to death. If we lose…”

“We won’t.”

He looks at her, and she feels the mask melt under his scrutiny. 

“We might lose.”

“Not this war. Not this time,” she says. Because I cannot lose you, she thinks. 

**

Jon has a nightmare that night. It wakes her up from her light sleep, and she hears him trashing the furs. She decides to ignore being proper and reaches his cot. It’s a cold night. She is shivering when she kneels at the side of the cot and places a calming hand on his forehead. 

He awakes with a start and looks at her in confusion. 

“Stannis was burning Mance, and Ramsay had Ygritte. I could hear you but couldn’t find you,” he rasps.

Ygritte. She thinks. 

“You are here. I’m here.”

“Ygritte is dead,” he says. There is grief in his voice as he says those words, more to himself than her, she realizes,  and she feels like her heart cannot contain all the feelings she has for him.   Her eyes fill with tears because his grief is raw and authentic. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. 

Was she your lover? Do you still love her? Why does it break my heart? She silently wonders. 

“Were you close?” she asks eventually.

He nods his head. “But I chose the Watch, and she died because of me.”

She sighs and loops an arm around his shoulders, “How did she die?”

“An arrow from Olly. She died in my arms.”

It’s clear that it’s something that still haunts Jon. And she cannot bear to see him hurt. 

There is a moment when she moves, and their faces are impossibly close. She looks at his lips, but whatever her twisted mind may think, he needs a friend at that moment. 

“Make room for me,” she says, standing up. 

“What for?”

“Trust me!”

He complies, and she lays down next to him in the cot. She is behind him, and she is aware that the cot is too small for both of them, but she doesn’t care.

“Sansa, I’m fine!”

“I’m cold. Indulge me!”

He lets her hug him from behind. It’s a good thing that he cannot see her face, and how she is furiously blushing. 

“Was she a Free Folk?” she asks after a moment. 

“Aye,”

“You don’t have to tell me about her if you don’t want to. We should sleep. It’s going to be a long trip to Bear Island, but I am here for you, Jon.”

He doesn’t reply, but his muscles relax, and she feels him take one hand in his. 

“Your mother would quarter me if he saw us right now.”

“She is dead. I love her and I miss her, but she was so wrong about you. And so was I,”

“We were children, and we already had this conversation. I mean it, Sansa, there is nothing to forgive.”

“Can you try to forgive yourself for Ygritte?”

“You don’t even know what I did.”

“You always do what you think is right, Jon.”

He squeezes her hand and sighs, “I lost everything.”

“No,” she says, “not everything. The Free Folk are loyal to you. And you have me.”

“You will  marry someday.”

“No. I can’t, not again. When we take back Winterfell, you’ll be the head of the House. I cannot be sold again.You need to promise me it won’t happen! ”

“Never. I swear to you. It will never happen!” he says, and she shivers at his words, at the vehemence in them.

“They will want you to marry some pretty lady,”

“It’s not going to happen.”

She smiles. “So, we’ll rule Winterfell together until we’re old and grey?”

“With Rickon. And Arya and Bran will come home.”

“The pack reunited.” she says with a smile. 

It is a sweet dream, and she knows it is all they have, but for that night, it is enough. His breathing evens out, and she adjusts the furs around them before resting her head against the pillow and closing her eyes.

The dreams, when they come, are of Winterfell, of her and Jon walking together on the battlements like her mother and father used to do. She can’t see them, but she knows her siblings are all there. They are free, they are happy. 

Sansa doesn’t say much during their trip to Bear Island. He is curious to see where Jeor Mormont came from. Starks and Mormonts have been allies for thousands of years, and he wants to believe they will not break faith with them. 

Jeor Mormont is dead, his son is in exile in Essos serving Daenerys Targaryen, Maege and her daughters died at the Red Wedding. They have a common enemy in Ramsay. Having said that, he doesn’t expect Lyanna Mormont. 

She is a scrap of a girl, younger than his siblings, but he remembers her raven to Stannis Baratheon. At the time, the young Lady of Bear Island pledged her alliance to the Starks. Will he be enough to convince her to pledge her men to their fight?

She scowls. She isn’t impressed with either of them. She ignores Sansa’s attempts at flattery and stops him mid-sentence when he talks about Jeor Mormont. 

“I think we’ve had enough small talk. Why are you here?” she asks. 

“Stannis Baratheon garrisoned at Castle Black before he marched on Winterfell and was killed. He showed me the letter you wrote when he petitioned for men it said -”

“I remember what it said.” Lyanna curtly says, interrupting him. “Bear Island know no King but the King in the North whose name is Stark.”

Millennia of loyalty and a child, a girl and a bastard, are deciding the future of their houses. It’s not lost on him that their campaign is a desperate one. He wants to take Winterfell back for Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon. He wants to do the right thing, but time is not on their side, and they still don’t have enough men. 

They are begging, perhaps. House Starks, however, need to hold the North, or they will stand no chance against the Others. 

Ramsay Bolton is a monster that haunts his dreams, but he is a man - and he knows how to kill men. The Night King is a threat that looms over every man, woman and babe in the world. 

“Robb is gone,” he says, “but House Stark is not, and it needs your support now more than ever. I’ve come to my sister to ask for House Mormont’s allegiance.”

How can he hope to protect Sansa if they don’t take Winterfell back and deal with Ramsay?

You may not have my name, but you have my blood. 

His father died before he could tell him about his mother, but he remembers what he told him. Stark blood runs into his veins, and he owes it to his House, his siblings, and his father to reclaim their home. He owes it to Sansa, who came to him cold and battered, and she is bringing him back from the brink, day after day. 

“As far as I understand, you’re a Snow and Lady Sansa is a Bolton - or is it Lannister? I’ve heard conflicting reports,” she says. Her words are harsh and unfair to Sansa, but nonetheless true. 

“I did what I had to do to survive, my Lady.” Sansa says, “I’m a Stark. I will always be a Stark!”

“If you say so,”

That child doesn’t know - she cannot imagine what Sansa went through. He hates that she has to justify herself. The North failed her, first leaving her in King’s Landing and then allowing her marriage to Ramsay to happen. She is Ned Stark’s first trueborn daughter. 

“In any case, you don’t just want my allegiance. You want my fighting men.” Lady Lyanna says. She is bright, and he thinks Jeor would be proud of her. 

“Ramsay Bolton cannot be allowed to keep Winterfell, my lady,” he says, voicing his thoughts and Sansa’s probably. 

“It is our duty to stop him, even more so because he holds our brother Rickon Stark as prisoner.”

He sighs and adds, “What you have to understand, my lady is that -”

“What I understand is that I’m responsible for Bear Island and all who live here,” she replies. Her voice barely conceals her anger. “So why should I sacrifice one  more Mormont’s life for someone else’s war?”

They have all lost so much in the war. He lost his father and brother. He doesn’t know where Arya and Bran are, but he knows Lyanna has lost just as much as him. There are no easy answers and he’s looking for one when Davos steps forward. 

“If it pleases my lady, I understand how you feel.” 

“I don’t know you, Ser -” she says. 

“Davos, my lady, of House Seaworth,” he says, telling her not to bother asking her Maester about his house because it’s rather new. 

“All right, Ser Davos of House Seaworth, how is it that you understand how I feel?”

“You never thought that you’d find yourself in your position: being responsible for so many lives at such a young age. I never thought I’d be in my position. I was a crabber’s son, then I was a smuggler, and now I find myself addressing the Lady of a great house in time of war, but I’m here because this isn’t someone else’s war. It’s our war!”

“Go on, Ser Davos,”

Perhaps it is Davos' tone of voice or the honesty in his eyes. Jon trusts that man, and he can only watch and listen to him. 

“Your uncle, the Lord Commander Mormont, made that man his Steward,” he says, pointing at him. “He chose Jon to be his successor because he knew he had the courage to do what was right, even if it meant giving his life. Because Jeor Mormont and Jon Snow both understood that the real war isn’t between a few squabbling houses. It’s between the living and the dead. And make no mistake, my lady, the dead are coming!”

He feels relief at Ser Davos’ words. It’s staggering.  He isn’t alone any more. Whatever Lady Mormont and the other bannermen will say, he knows he isn’t alone. Sansa is at his right, Davos at his left, and, for a moment, he doesn’t feel like he is carrying the weight of the truth about the Others on his shoulders. 

There is no anger in the young Lady Mormont. She looks at him when she asks if what Ser Davos said is true. They are children of the North. They know the stories. They know about the first Long Night. He thinks, on some level, every northern person is feeling what’s happening. 

“Your uncle fought them at the Fist of the First Men. I fought them at Hardhorne. We both lost.” he says.

He lost, and he cannot forget what happened. He cannot forget the cold, the dead risen and the Night King’s eyes. 

“As long as the Boltons hold Winterfell, the North is divided, and a divided North won’t stand a chance against the Night King. You want to protect your people, my lady, I understand. But there is no hiding from this. We have to fight, and we need to do it together.”

Lady Mormont looks at them all. She silences the Maester with a raised hand, and her voice is clear when she says, “House Mormont has kept Faith with House Stark for a thousand years. We will not break faith today.”

He feels like he can breathe again. He doesn’t dare look at Sansa, fearing that she will see that he is not the right person to do that. He is not Eddard Stark, and he is not Robb. He was labelled a traitor, and his brothers of the Watch killed him. 

I’m all she has. She is all I have, he thinks. Against Ramsay, against the Night King. There are just the two of them. He is afraid, more than he ever remembers being, but he is also relieved because the Lady of House Mormont believes him. 

She promises them sixty-two men.

“We are not a large house, but we are a proud one and every man from Bear Island fights with the strength of  ten mainlanders.” 

“If they’re half as ferocious as their Lady, the Boltons are doomed,” Davos says, making Lyanna Mormont smile. 

Hours later, they are on the boat that will bring them to the mainland. It’s a very cold night, but he finds Sansa outside, draped in her cloak, looking at the sky. 

“I missed the sky. I missed the cold. King’s Landing was hot. Its stench reached even the Red Keep. I can smell the sea and the snow.”

He takes a step toward her. It’s a beautiful night indeed; the sky is filled with stars, and the water is deep blue. 

“It went well,” he says. 

“Not thanks to me. I knew they would see me as a Bolton or a Lannister.”

“You are a Stark, Sansa.”

She turns and smiles for a moment. Then she sighs and asks, “Did you really fight the dead?”

“Aye, I even killed a White Walker with Longclaw. It was a massacre.”

“You will fight him again, won’t you?” she looks at him and softly adds, “Of course you will. You are like a hero from the songs.”

“I’m not. I am afraid.”

“But you will still fight him. I ran away from Cersei, from Ramsay -”

“And you came to me.”

She takes his hand in hers, not looking at him, and says, “Yes. And when we take Winterfell, I’ll make it ready for the fight against the Others.”

“You didn’t use to believe in these stories.”

“No, that’s not true. I was scared of them, but I know they’re true.”

“You believe me.”

She squeezes his hand and whispers, “You are the only person I believe in, Jon.”

He doesn’t know what to reply to that. Sansa is cold sometimes. He sees her blank face and empty eyes. She is terrified after her nightmares. She is kind to Tormund, and her words and her trust in him make his heart soar. 

He doesn’t tell her that the feeling is mutual. He stays there, looking at the night in silence. 

It’s a long time before they go to their cabins, and sleep doesn’t come that night. When it does, it’s all about Sansa. Sansa in Winterfell, under the Weirdwood Tree smiling at him. It’s night, and lanterns are everywhere. In his dream, she is happy; they both are. 

Lord Glover is a stern man and he doesn’t even welcome them inside his keep. She is used to harsh words and cruel men. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t react. It’s discouraging, even if they have got ravens from other minor houses pledging themselves to the Stark. 

They still don’t have the numbers, and she refuses to give up in panic. They have a contingency plan, and she can string Littlefinger along, but she doesn’t want him anywhere near Jon if she can help it. 

Still, it hurts to hear his refusal. It hurts to see he doesn’t even offer Ned Stark’s children guest rights. Perhaps Joffrey and Cersei didn’t kill the stupid little girl she used to be because a part of her was sure her father’s bannermen would rally under his son and daughter. 

Perhaps the North bled too much for the past few years, and even loyal men like Lord Glover feel entitled to break faith. She cannot begrudge those who fear going against the Boltons. She knows exactly what Ramsay did to the Cerwins. She knows what the man is capable of. 

“I could be skinned for even talking to you,” Lord Glover says. 

“The Boltons are traitors,” Jon says. She thinks he is good, and his words are true, but will that be enough?

“Roose Bolton –”

“Have the Northern houses pledged to fight for you?” Lord Glover asks. 

“House Mormont,”

“And?”

Lord Glover is not interested in the Ravens. He wants to know who is fighting for them and hear that the bulk of their forces are made up of Wildings. He clearly disapproves. 

“I received you out of respect for your father. Now I’d like you to leave. House Glover will not abandon its ancestral home to fight alongside Wildings!”

When Lord Glover dares to shut Jon up while he is speaking, turning his back to them, she cannot help it. The anger she can usually keep at bay courses through her when she says, “I would remind you that House Glover is pledged to House Stark. Sworn to answer when called upon.”

Lord Glover walks back toward her, and she tilts her chin up. If she is honest with herself, the idea of any man getting so close to her scares her, but she does not show any fear. 

“Yes, my family served House Stark for centuries. We wept when we heard of your father’s death. When my brother was Lord of this castle, he answered Robb’s call and hailed him King in the North. And where was King Robb when the Iron Born attacked this castle? When they threw my wife and children in prison and brutalized and killed our subjects? Taken up with a foreign whore, getting himself and those who followed him killed.”

Lord Glover looks at Jon. He looks at her again and hisses, “I served House Stark once, but House Stark is dead!”

She holds her head high until they leave the courtyard. Her eyes are dry when she mounts on her horse, ignoring both Jon and Davos. 

The Lannisters killed her family. And so many people died because of their greed and their sins. House Stark is not dead, but it doesn’t mean she deserves to be one. Not with all her mistakes, not with the way she survived. Not with - the thoughts she has about Jon. 

Lord Glover’s words hurt. And she is honestly surprised that words can still hurt like that.

They arrive at camp eventually. Her eyes are still dry, even if she wants to cry. She has learned a long time ago that tears are useless, though. The ball of anger in her gut is swelling. She has noticed that she can’t control her anger as well as she used to. Perhaps it’s because she feels Jon will not hurt her if she lashes out. Or, perhaps, it’s because she is afraid of Ramsay. 

If they lose, if her husband catches her, he will not kill her. Not right away. He needs an heir, after all. His torments will be worse because she escaped because she is trying to rally the North against him. She knows that he can do worse than what he did. There is not one night where she doesn’t see Theon in her dreams.  

There is a part of her that wishes she could cry in Jon’s arms, let her reassure her that the Starks are not dead, that everything will be all right, that Lord Glover’s refusal and the Manderley’s silence is a setback, but they have gathered more men from the other minor houses.

She can’t, however. She will not allow herself that luxury. She doesn’t deserve it. 

Jon is saying that they need to march on Winterfell while they still have time. Winter is coming. They all know it. She can feel it in her scars and her bones. The climate killed Stannis Baratheon as much as the Boltons. And yes, they’re all Northerners, but Ramsay still has more men than them and Winterfell itself. 

They have less than half the men Ramsay has. 

Fear begets anger. And she is angry now as she speaks to Jon. 

“So, he is your most trusted advisor now because he secured 62 men from a 10 year old,” she says, talking about Davos. She isn’t angry with Ser Davos, she knows he is doing his best. She just can’t see past her anger, and Lord Glover’s words are burning inside of her.   

“Ser Davos is the reason I’m talking to you. And he served Stannis for years,” he replies.

“Stannis, who lost the Blackwater, who murdered his own brother, who doesn’t have a head! It’s not enough. We need more men!”

“There’s no time!” he replies.

“Yes, there is,” she says. 

“Sansa -” he trails off.

“He owes me,”

“What will you owe him if he sends his men?” he asks.

She shrugs. Baelish will be careful at first. He will try to worm his way into the North, whispering in her ear, but her eyes are wide open with the man. She doesn’t trust him, and she can buy themselves time. She can bide her time until she finds something that will stop him for good. 

Jon strides toward her. He looks angry when he says, “No. I won’t risk it! We’ll fight Ramsay with the army we have!”

He notices the fight among the men in the camp, looks at her for another moment and then leaves. And she knows that he won’t change his mind. He doesn’t know her husband, but he will fight him with not enough men. He will die. 

The idea of losing him is crippling. It scares her even more than the possibility of her husband taking her back. She won’t go back to him alive.  Ramsay will never touch her again. Her skin feels too tight, and she can taste copper and tears in her mouth. She looks around and sees a Maester handling the cages with ravens. 

Jon will be angry. She knows that. He will feel betrayed, even if he left her before she could explain herself. He doesn’t understand. He thinks Baelish is the worst that could happen to her. Doesn’t he know that she has survived the worst? Doesn’t he know that she will do everything she can to protect him and take Winterfell back?

She knows which words to use to stroke Baelish’s ego. She plays the game with the man who taught her some moves. 

Perhaps Lord Glover is right. She thinks when she reads the scroll, she will send it to Baelish. Perhaps House Stark is dead. Her father would have never done what she is doing. Robb - wouldn’t, either. They are dead.

Jon and her are still alive. She will protect him from Ramsay, from Littlefinger, even from his own honour. She has to protect herself. 

Winter is coming for Ramsay Bolton. 

Later, he finds her in the tent. He can smell the balms Melisandre made for her. She is sitting in front of the brazier, looking at the flames. 

“He was wrong,” he says. 

Sansa doesn’t turn. She doesn’t acknowledge his presence. He knows she is angry and scared. He has a contingency plan for the battle against Ramsay. He spoke with Brienne and Ser Davos. The man is staying back. He won’t fight. If they lose, he will bring Sansa to safety, to Tarth and then from there to Essos. 

“Was he?” she asks after a moment. “Do you know how many people I heard calling father traitor? How many people were happy when Mother and Robb were slaughtered? When the news came that Bran and Rickon were dead? I didn’t know where Arya was. I couldn’t reach you. I thought I was the last of the Starks, and I was married to a Lannister!”

“Arya, Bran and Rickon are alive. We are alive. House Stark is not dead, Sansa.”

“It’s all my fault. Everything. All of it.” she says. “Do you think I want Winterfell back because I want a castle?”

He blinks. How can she think that? 

“No, of course not!”

“I bled for the North, Jon. I bled in front of everyone in King’s Landing. I bled in my home! Robb left me to King’s Landing, and I accepted it because he was my King and because of the letter.”

“Which letter?”

She isn’t looking at him. He doesn’t think he has ever seen her like that. She sounds empty and tired. And it’s killing him that she refuses to look at him. 

“They made me write a letter to Robb when father was in prison, asking him to bend the knee to Joffrey. They told me Father would take the Black. And I did it. Father died a traitor because of me and my brother. My King gave up on me.”

He takes a step forward, “You were a child.”

“Lyanna Mormont is a child. I doubt she would have done the same.”

“She is the Lady of her House. She has men loyal to her house who counsel her. You had no one.”

“Would you have done it, then?” she asks, and she still doesn’t look at him. 

“I killed one of my brothers of the Watch to infiltrate the Wildings. I told you, I’m not a knight from a song.”

“No, they don’t exist. The knights in King’s Landing took turns to strip me naked before the court and beat me. You are not like them.”

“I know I was harsh earlier, but look at me, Sansa.”

He sees the tension in her neck and her shoulders, she slowly turn her head to the side. Tears are rolling down her cheeks and she says, “I want revenge, Jon. I want to see Ramsay die. I want Cersei to know that the Starks hold Winterfell again. I want her to keep thinking I killed her son. I have become like them.”

“Why are you crying, then?”

“Because you will see what I am, sooner or later, and you will hate me. I’m not honourable like father or mother, I’m not like Arya. You always loved her the most. You’re stuck with the sister who was horrible to you, who watched Father die, who caused his death!”

“Joffrey Lannister ordered his death. Not you!” he kneels at her side and takes her by her shoulders. She flinches at the sudden movement, but he doesn’t let go, “I could never hate you!" 

“Why? You barely know me. We didn’t grow up together.”

“Because it’s you, Sansa. You are Sansa Stark of Winterfell. Daughter of Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully. You survived. And I am glad you did. I am glad you found me.”

She lets out a sob, and he pulls her into his arms. The angle is awkward, but he doesn’t care. 

“I wrote to him,” she whispers against his neck. 

He sighs. 

“Can’t you trust me to protect you?”

“I do. He will leave me hanging; he will play the game. You need to make your plans without the Knights of the Vale in mind. He will wait until the last possible moment to use them.”

“How do you know?”

“I know Littlefinger; when we were in the Vale, he took me under his wing. I know how he thinks.”

“If they come when the situation is dire, they will be seen as the saviours. And the people will know they will fight for you.”

“Yes, it’s part of the game.  I can neutralize some of his plans. But only if we take Winterfell back.”

“Mounted horses and knights. It would make a difference.”

“Make your plans as if they are not coming. You say we’re running out of time? Call a parlay with Ramsay. He will taunt you. But you can do the same. He needs to leave Winterfell. We know the castle was built to withstand sieges.”

“You told me you know nothing of war.”

“But I know Ramsay. And I paid attention during the Maester’s lessons.”

She is in his arms; she has stopped crying. He should let her go, step back, and give her space. He should be angry because he told her he didn’t want her to contact Baelish, but he appreciates that she told him. 

“House Stark is not dead,” she says, “you are a Stark.”

“I’m a Snow.”

“You are a Stark to me.”

He notices that her voice breaks with the last words she says. 

“Let’s get some sleep,” he says.

He gently guides her up and to her cot. His hand circling her waist,, their bodies pressed closer. 

“Can you lie down with me?” she asks. 

He nods; Sansa is still wiping away tears from her face with the back of her hand. 

“Tears are useless,” she says. 

“They remind you that you still care,” he says. 

Sansa lies down on the cot, making room for him. He lies behind her, his arm protectively circling her waist. 

“I didn’t want to tell you about my raven to Littlefinger,” she says. 

“What made you change your mind?”

“We are all we got.” He hears a smile in her voice when she says, “Seven Hells, Jon! Your feet are icy!”

He chuckles at her words, and she does the same. He notices only then that she is caressing his arm, the one draped around her waist. 

“When we slept together the other night, I didn’t have nightmares.”

“Neither did I after that one.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Aye, there is a frozen lake not so far away from here. Would you like to go there tomorrow?”

“Yes. The Manderleys will not reply to our raven. We have our army.”

“I talked to Brienne before she left. If things go bad, Ser Davos will bring you to Tarth.”

Sansa doesn’t reply. She reaches and places a kiss on his stubbed cheek and says, “Good night, Jon.”

“Good night, Sansa of House Stark.”

“Shut up,” she says, but there is mirth in her voice now. 

“Good night, Jon Snow of Winterfell,” she says after a moment. 

It doesn’t sound like an accusation, and it’s not the stain he has carried since birth. Coming from her, it seems to mean more—it means everything.

He is falling in love with her. 

Chapter Text

Riverrun, 303 C.A. 

 She shouldn’t have left Lady Sansa. Her mind keeps telling her that. It is not that she thinks Jon Snow will not protect his sister. She has noticed how close they have got, and he seems trustworthy and, from what little she heard, an honourable man. 

There are selfish reasons as well. She will never again put her feelings before her duty, but when she sees the Lannisters’ colours and realizes she will see Ser Jaime, part of her wishes to return North. 

Jaime Lannister gave her a Valyrian sword, armoured her, and gave her Pod, the means to look for the Stark sisters and honour their pledge to Lady Catelyn. It’s not like she thinks he will harm her. 

She knows there is honour and goodness in him. She saw it with her own eyes when he lost his hand to protect her virtue and heard it in his voice at Harrenhal. 

Yet, he is doing his sister’s bidding. He stayed with her. 

She doesn’t judge his love for Cersei. He was right when he told her they can’t choose who they love. He had no part in the murder of Robb Stark and his mother at the Twins, but he is still choosing to side with his family. 

There is a part of her who sympathizes with him despite everything. He once killed a King to protect the innocents. Surely, he must know that his late father and his sister are despicable. Does he ever think about it? Is his loyalty to his family and the woman he loves stronger than his honour?

It must be; she cannot find it in herself to hate him for that. 

The problem is that she cannot hate him; what she feels for him is complicated, and it’s easier to care about him when they are apart. Her mind goes back to the time they spent together, poking and prodding every moment they spent together, smiling, despite herself, at his incessant words, his arrogance, his sense of humour. 

She stops, sometimes, and remembers the moments that drew them closer together. She remembers holding his feverish naked body in the bath and how he came back for her. 

She doesn’t want to care for him. It’s useless. Nothing good can come out of it. Even when apart, she often chastised herself when she remembered his perfect skin, his eyes' shape, his profile, and his lips. 

She is where she wants to be. She is happy serving Lady Sansa Stark. She has a purpose; her life finally has a meaning. It doesn’t matter what she looks like. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t a true woman. 

She is useful.  Sansa trusts her, and even her brother is learning to. They have discussed 

contingency plans for her in case they lose against Ramsay Bolton; she has already written to her father, even if she hopes and prays that Jon Snow will defeat the Boltons’ forces, and they deal with Ramsay. 

Boltons, Freys - people who deceived and killed their way to power. She cannot fathom that the reward for killing a King, a Queen and their unborn babe, and the King’s mother is Riverrun. 

Yet, for one single moment, when she sees him, she doesn’t care. His hair is short, his cheeks are stubbled, and he wears leather and Lannister red. He is the most handsome man she has ever seen. She saw him at his worst when he insulted her appearance or while sick, and it takes nothing away from his sheer beauty.

Caring for him from afar is so much easier. She doesn’t feel the need to be quiet or sharp-witted when they are far away from each other. She can be soft at times. She can ask him about his stump and whether the scarring tissue still troubles him when the weather changes. She asks him about his training, and when he tells her he is getting better, she is proud of him. 

Those are fantasies, dreams of a maid who should know her place, who should have learned her lesson. 

She is wearing the armour he gifted her. She has Oathkeeper with her. It helped save Sansa from the Boltons men. She couldn’t bring Lady Arya with her when she found her, but she is confident that she will find her way back to her siblings. And if  Sansa should order, she will look for her sister and find her again. 

“I never thought you’d find her,”  Jaime says when they are inside what she supposes is his tent. “I just assumed Sansa was dead.”

“Why would you assume that?” she asks. She can’t help the tone of her voice. She never uses that tone of voice with the Jaime who lives in her dreams and fantasies. 

“In my experience, girls like her don’t live very long,” he says. 

Is he thinking about Princess Elia Martell? She wonders. Or is he thinking about some other girl his sister destroyed? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t like that he talks about Sansa like that. He doesn’t know her. 

“I don’t think you know many girls like her.”

She cannot stop looking at him. She feels like they are back in time at Harrenhall, and she is naked in the water. She is wearing a hideous pink gown again and she is fighting a bear with a wooden sword and her neck is bleeding. 

She is rooted to the spot. She had forgotten how strongly she feels for Jaime Lannister. 

“Well, I’m proud of you. I am. You fulfilled your oath to Catelyn Stark against all odds.”

She cannot look at him. A small, jagged part of her thinks he is mocking her now. But no, he isn’t. She knows his mocking voice. He means his words. A knight, a hero, it doesn’t matter how tainted his reputation is or how vile some of his acts are. He has just paid her a compliment, and she doesn’t know what to say or do. 

She wishes she could look at him, but she fears he will see all her fantasies and dreams in her eyes, and she cannot let him. 

“Of course, my sister wants Sansa dead. The girl is still a suspect in Joffrey’s murder, so there is that complication,” he says. Of course, Cersei wants that. She will fail. She will protect Lady Sansa until her dying breath, and she suspects her brother will tear apart everyone who tries to harm his sister. 

Would Jaime kill Sansa if his sister ordered him to? Would he break his oath to Lady Catelyn? Would he forsake their camaraderie to follow her whims? 

He walks toward her, and she notices he looks pale. He doesn’t look unhealthy, but there is something off about him. Is it being in Riverrun and ousting the Tullys from their ancestral seat? She doesn’t know what to think. 

His voice is low and throaty when he asks her, “What the hell are you doing here?”

I wish I were everywhere but here. Seeing you throw away your honour drives me crazy, she thinks. She looks at him. She can do that if she is angry, if she forgets, for a moment, that she has spent years thinking about him, something warm and sweet and secret that she nurtures in the dark. 

“I’ve come for the Blackfish,” 

“You’re welcome to have him,” he replies, and she knows his tone of voice. She missed his sometimes patronizing tone. 

“Lady Sansa desires to take her ancestral seat back from the Boltons and assume her rightful position as Lady of Winterfell,” she explains. She is proud of her. She wishes she were in the North helping with the war against her husband. She understands, however. That having a man like the Blackfish and any he can spare for his kin could make the difference. 

“With what army does she plan on taking Winterfell?” he asks. 

There is no judgment about Sansa and her wanting back her home. Jaime is a soldier. He is a warrior. Of course, he would ask about armies. 

“The Tully army.”

“They’re a bit occupied at the moment. I was sent here to reclaim Riverrrun, currently defended by the Tully rebels, so you can see the conundrum.”

Why is he doing this? Why is he talking with Cersei’s words?   

“The Tullys are rebels because they’re fighting for their home?” she asks. 

“Riverruns was granted to the Freys by Royal Decree,”

“As a reward for betraying Robb Stark and slaughtering his family!” she snaps. 

“Exactly!” he snaps back. 

He is standing in front of her, rigid in his posture, his face a severe mask, his eyes, however - there is nothing in eyes. No joy, no anger. He is following the order of his King and son, and he will not stray, regardless of what he might personally think. 

“Shouldn’t argue about politics,” he says and turns his back to her. He stops looking at her and she misses the contact between them, she feels its absence like a vice around her heart. 

What is he doing? Why has she forgotten that he is better than his family and his lover?

“You are a knight, Ser Jaime. I know there is honour in you. I’ve seen it myself.” She says. 

He interrupts her, saying, without looking at her, “I’m a Lannister. Don’t ask me to betray my own House.”

She isn’t. She wouldn’t. She may be tall and strong, and she may be brutish, but her heart is tender underneath. There is a place in it where Ser Jaime Lannister lives and has for years. She wants him to be better because she knows he can be. She has seen it. 

“I do no such thing. Take Riverrun without bloodshed. Ride South again with your mission complete and your army intact.”

He is standing in front of her, a large table between them. It’s odd, unfamiliar because she remembers what it’s like to be close to him, skin to skin. Does he remember? Is he putting distance between them because he is loyal to his house and she is loyal to Sansa?

“What do you propose?” he asks. 

There is still that bond of trust between them. She thinks it’s real and it’s there, in the room, with them. 

“Allow me to enter Riverrun under a flag of truce,” she says. Why is she willing to help him take the Tully’s ancestral seat? It’s wrong. She knows it, he knows it. And yet she goes on and says, “Let me try to persuade the Blackfish to give up the castle.”

She should help the Tullys. Honour compels her to lend her sword to Lady Catelyn and Sansa’s kin. 

He doesn’t want to be here. Let me help him not to shed innocent blood. Let me give him this, at least. She thinks. She owes Jaime Lannister at least to avoid a massacre which would stain his reputation even further. 

“Why would he abandon his ancestral home?” he asks. He is right. A man like the Blackfish would never surrender his home to the Lannisters and the Freys. 

“Because you’ll allow him to lead the Tullys’ forces safely North,” she says. She would save Sansa’s kin, fulfil her request and let Jaime have his victory without shedding part of his soul. 

“Have you ever met the Blackfish?”

She blinks. It’s a good plan, and he found a hole in it right away. He once told her that he was the stupidest Lannister. She disagrees. 

“No,” she says. 

“He’s even more stubborn than you are,” he replies. She is stubborn. That is not a lie. She is trying to do the right thing. And she didn’t even realize how much she missed him until now. 

Caring from afar is easier. The Jaime Lannister she remembers and thinks of is the man she has learned to know. This man in front of her is real. He is loyal to his family, devoted to a cruel woman, wearing fine clothes and a golden hand. She should hate the real thing, but she doesn’t. She can’t. 

“All right,” he says, “try to talk some sense into the old goat.”

He isn’t looking at her. Why isn’t he looking at her? 

He turns, looks at her, and adds, “He won’t listen, but his men might. Not everybody wants to die for somebody else’s home.”

She is willing to die so that Sansa might reclaim Winterfell. He must know that. 

“I need your word. If I persuade him to abandon the castle, you’ll grant us safe passage North,” she says. 

She trusts him with her life. He saved her when they hated each other. She does not ask because of her lack of trust. She needs to bring the men North. She needs him not to shed blood for an unjust cause. In her dreams, she needn’t even ask because he doesn’t wear his House colours, and he chose his honour. 

It’s the real world, however. And she needs his word. 

He nods at her words, she can see even from the distance he put between them that the look in his eyes is softer, now. 

“You have my word. You have until nightfall.”

It’s the real world, and she is carrying his sword, the one he gave her. She needs to show him that she trusts him and that his word means something to her. She unbuckles her sword belt, and for a moment, her fingers shake. She is acutely aware of the noises she is making. 

She reaches toward him, holding the sword. Only then does he take a step toward her and looks at the blade with a frown. He sighs. 

“You gave it to me for a purpose,”  she says. He is close now, and his eyes are as lovely as she remembered them. He is the most beautiful man she has ever met. She is ugly. It doesn't stop her heart from caring about him. 

She can and will nurture her feelings for him. The world doesn’t need to know - no one does. They are alone now, and she can look, drink him in, wish things were different, and he could join them North to defeat Ramsay Bolton, pledge himself to Lady Sansa and fulfil his part of the oath to Lady Catelyn. 

These are fantasies. She knows it will never happen, so she says, “I have achieved that purpose.”

Underneath her armor, her heart drums against her ribcage. She can forgive Jaime for his choices, but his sins are not hers to forgive. She can care about him, and she does. More than it’s sensible. 

She can only wish he made different choices, ones that would show the world he is more than his sister’s puppet. 

“It’s yours.” He says. “It will always be yours.”

His voice is not arrogant or mocking. He is looking at her, and his eyes are almost pleading. 

Take it. I can’t make the right choice. Be honourable. His eyes seem to say. 

She can’t stay there. She shouldn’t have left the North. She should have tried to avoid the Lannister's camp. Duty has never been so hard for her at that moment. 

She hears him following her steps, and she turns. She is almost outside the tent. Her words tumble out of her mouth unbidden: “One last thing, Ser Jaime.”

“Yes, Lady Brienne,” he says. Is he mocking her? Or is he just himself ? She cannot tell. 

“Should I fail to persuade the Blackfish to surrender, and if you attack the castle, honour compels me to fight for Sansa’s kin.”

Isn’t that her fear since they started talking? She lied to herself, thinking she was trying to protect Jaime’s honour. She doesn’t want to fight him. She would. She knows she would fight for the Tullys, and it would kill her. 

“Of course it does.”

“To fight you.”

He is looking at her, and she cannot understand what she sees in his eyes. His voice is soft when he says, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Don’t make it into a jape. You know I would beat you, and it would devastate me. She thinks and holds his gaze for a moment longer before hurrying away from the tent. 

Jaime is a man of honour. She trusts that he will keep his word. She hopes that he will find a way not to kill Sansa’s kin. It’s so easy to care for Jaime Lannister from afar and remember their closeness. 

It’s hard to love Jaime Lannister in the real world, when they are close. And yet she does. He was right above love. She can’t help feeling what she feels, but she can choose what to do. She will do the right thing, even if she feels it might end up twisting her heart and ripping it apart. 

Jaime is right. The Blackfish is stubborn. He will not surrender. He doesn’t trust her, so he refuses to take Sansa's letter. She runs after him while he barks orders to his men, trying to make him see reason. 

He has the same fire Lady Catelyn had, and she suspects the same will of iron. 

“You cannot stand against the Lannisters and the Freys!”

“We can stand longer than your one-handed friend thinks we can.”

“He is not my friend!”

The Blackfish stops walking and turns to look at her. “No?” he asks. “Who gave you permission to cross the siege and enter the castle? Who gave you the sword with the gold lion on the pommel?”

Kingslayer whore.  Didn’t she hear it somewhere? It’s ludicrous. Jaime and her have a complicated relationship and the last thing she wants is to explain herself to that stubborn man! Yet, she has to for Sansa. 

“Ser Jaime kept his word to your niece Catelyn Stark. He sent me to find Sansa, to help her escape a monster! He gave me this sword to protect her, that is what I have done, and I will continue to do until the day I die!” she says and gives him the letter. 

The Blackfish reads the letter, and his voice is soft when he says, “She is exactly like her mother.” 

He looks at her and says, “I don’t have enough men to help her take back Winterfell,”

“You have more than she does,” she says. Should she betray Sansa’s confidence and tell that man what her husband did to her? She saw the scars on her body, she held her after her nightmares. Sansa needs to take back her home and defeat Ramsay Bolton and she will not rest until she is safe. 

“She wants her home back, I understand that. But this is my home, and if Jaime Lannister wants it, he can bloody well take it the way everyone else does.”

Whatever happened to Family, Duty, Honour? The Tullys words?

 Has the war of the Five Kings crumpled all loyalty and honour? 

“Find the Maester,” she says to Pod. 

She failed. Again. She failed Renly, she failed Lady Catelyn, and she is failing Sansa, now. 

“We need to get a raven North to Sansa.”

“What should I write?” he asks. 

“Tell her I failed,” she says. 

Will she have to fight Jaime now? 

There is no bloodshed. Brienne has to give Jaime that. Yet, part of her is heartbroken. The Blackfish leads her and Pod to a small boat. She can hear men, and part of her can’t believe they are not fighting. 

“Come with us.” She pleads the Blackfish. He is stubborn, he is a warrior, and he doesn’t deserve to die for that outrageous Royal Decree. 

“I’ve run before, from the Red Wedding. I’m not running again. This is my family home.”

“Your family is in the North!” she says. Sansa and Jon need all the help they can get. And should they save young Rickon he will need him as well. “Come with us. Don’t die for pride when you can fight for your blood!”

He looks at her. He wants to stay and fight, but perhaps he is also remembering his family’s words. Perhaps he is thinking of what his niece would want now. 

“You’ll serve Sansa far better than I ever could.”

“No. She needs you. She will ask Petyr Baelish for help. Her husband is a monster. Her brother might not be enough. I might not be enough. I’m begging you. For Lady Catelyn. Come with us!”

She will never know which words she said worked; she doesn’t even care. The Blackfish glances behind him and sighs, saying, “Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

Relief floods her. She cannot bring an army to Sansa, but a man like the Blackfish can help her against people like Baelish.

He can help his blood win their war, and when the time comes, she will help him take his home back. 

She tells him. She makes an oath to the man. 

“I will hold you to that,” he says. 

It’s dark while they row, but she sees Jaime. He must know that they are bringing the Blackfish with them, but he doesn’t seem to care. He raises his golden hand to say farewell. 

She does the same. 

Until the next time. 

“Not friends, huh?” The Blackfish says. 

“He saved my life,” she says. 

“He took my home. On order of his bastard son, who wears the crown. Robb should have killed him.”

She opens her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out of it. The Blackfish is alert, his handd on the pommel of hiss sword. They have been rowing in silence for minutes when the man says, “Tell me about Sansa. And about Baelish.”

It’s going to be a long night. 

The North 303. C.A.

Ramsay has agreed to a parlay. It will be close to Winterfell, one way her husband wants to taunt them. Their job is to stroke his hubris so that he decides to fight outside the castle. A siege of Winterfell is out of the question: they don’t have enough time or resources to withstand one. 

No, they need to fight Ramsay on the open field. Even Jon, Davos and Tormund agree. 

She feels rested. The cots are small, made for one person, but Jon and she somehow make it work. She doesn't have nightmares when she sleeps with him, and she knows he doesn’t have nightmares either. It works.

People at the camp either don’t know or don’t care about their sleeping arrangements. And why should they? They might be adults, but they are still siblings . 

That word twists itself like a knife inside of her, sometimes. 

Yes, he is her brother. But in such a short amount of time, he has become so much more than that. He is her friend, her confidante, and the constant thought in her mind throughout the day when they are apart. He is her salvation when she gets lost inside herself and her humanity when she thinks she has nothing left. 

He doesn’t want her to deal with Littlefinger, and she wishes that someone had protected her from Baelish years before. It’s too late now. She is not innocent any more. She can spare Jon, however. That much she can do, and she will. 

She woke up in Jon’s arms again this morning, their legs tangled, his arm still draped around her waist, her head on his chest. And, for a moment, she basked in the peace she felt, enjoying the silence around them. Warm in Jon’s arms, Ghost sleeping at their feet on the cot. 

There was fire, inside of her, liquid and hot, pooling in her belly and between her legs, when she felt Jon’s manhood pressed against her back, his breath against her neck. All she knows about the marital bed is pain and blood. Shae and Margaery used to tell her that women can find pleasure too, that they can experience desire as much as men. 

Is it what she felt? That ache between her legs was so different from the one she is used to. It was sweet, throbbing, and she knows she is not supposed to feel it with her brother. But it exists, it’s real and she can only pretend that it doesn’t exist. She is good at pretending. Jon will never know her shame. He will never know that she is twisted and broken so deeply. 

He is good. And she can pretend to be good, too. Not with him. She loves him, she doesn’t pretend with him. She never does, even when it would be easier to do that. No. She can pretend she doesn’t want to see her family’s enemies bleed and beg for mercy and receive none, like her family did. She can pretend she doesn’t yearn for his touch and to feel his body pressed against hers. And that she only sees him as a sibling she is now close to.

Nothing of her inner feelings show on her face when they meet in the tent for their council before the parlay. She will be there. Not just because she wants Ramsay to know he didn’t destroy her but because she will be the Lady of Winterfell. She is a Stark, and the bannermen who pledged themselves to them need to see the Starks in control. 

“We need proof of Rickon’s life.” Ser Davos says.

“He is alive. Ramsay will use him as leverage. He will taunt you, Jon. He will play games with him.”

Jon nods, “And we will play games with him as well.”

She doesn’t want him to meet her husband. The idea of Jon breathing in the same space as her monster of a husband makes her blood boil. It is necessary, however. 

When they are alone, he asks, “Is there any news from Littlefinger?”

She shakes her head. “He will wait. He wants me to be desperate so that I will be thankful. He wants the North to think I won the battle.”

“It might as well be true.”

“No. Whatever happens, if we win, you will be the one who avenged the Red Wedding. It gives you power. It’ll make you safe.”

“He is just a man, Sansa.”

“Yes. Who conspired to kill a King, who killed his wife, and the Gods know how many more to gain power. He thinks he can use me. Let him. He will never get close enough to you, not if I can help it!”

“I can protect myself, you know?”

She smiles, “I know, but you don’t know him like I do.”

“Are you sure you want to be at the parlay?” he asks, changing the subject, swapping one monster with another. 

She nods. “Yes. He needs to know Winter is coming for him.”

“You sound like Father.”

She blinks back sudden tears. “Father was an honourable man. I don’t care about honour. King’s Landing saw to that.”

“You are too harsh to yourself.”

She reaches a hand over the table and squeezes his hand. “And you are too good to me. I will disappoint you sooner or later because I’m not like you or Father.”

He looks at her, and there are so many emotions in his eyes that she needs to look away, she focused on their clasped fingers on the table and whispers, “But you make me want to be a better person.”

She hears him sigh. He brushes his thumb over her knuckles and then gently breaks the contact between them and says, “We should go. I will be there with you,”

They’re almost outside the tent when he says, “You are a good woman, Sansa Stark. “

If I were, she thinks, I wouldn’t want you. I wouldn’t want revenge. 

She smiles, however, because Jon cannot know what she feels for him. She would break his heart, maybe he would not abandon her, but he would avoid her, ignore her. It would probably take the pieces of her heart and shatter them. 

She wears a mask—one she has worn many times—the facade of a cold and blank Lady of the North. 

Even if she feels anything but cold. 

 He is coming. It’s cold, but it’s not why she tries not to shiver. Jon seems to feel her discomfort. She has felt him looking at her ever since they saw the horses approaching them.

“You don’t have to be here,” he says. His voice reminds her why she needs to be there. That is one of the reasons, at least. 

She can already see Ramsay when she says, “Yes. I do.”

She is not afraid; she is surrounded by their people, and she trusts Jon with her life. Yet, when she sees her husband, her instinct is to cower, to make herself small and invisible. 

No. She can’t. She is holding the reins of her horse, her spine straight, her chin held up. She is Sanssa Stark of Winterfell, the vermin in front of her will be eliminated. He will never hurt anyone else. 

“My beloved wife,” Ramsay says as soon as he sees her. 

She tastes bile in her throat. It’s not the first time, and she has learned to school her features into not showing anything. It saved her life in King’s Landing, it will allow her not to make a fool of herself today. 

“I’ve missed you terribly,” he says, looking at Jon. Then, he adds, “Thank you for returning Lady Bolton safely.”

Jon’s face and eyes are full of anger. She told him he would taunt him. He needs to ignore him. 

“Now,” Ramsays says, “dismount and kneel before me. Surrender your army and proclaim me the true Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. I will pardon you for deserting the Night Watch. I will pardon these treasonous Lords for betraying my House. Come, bastard! You don’t have the men, you don’t have the horses, and you don’t have Winterfell!”

He is insane, but their rebellion upsets his legitimacy as Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. They don’t have the men, but she doesn’t see many banners on his side. Even the houses that refused to pledge to them are not aiding the Boltons. 

As long as the Starks are alive, Ramsay’s claims will always be contested. It makes her fear for Rickon ache in her heart, and the one for Jon twists her stomach. She knows what he would do to her if they lost. Her nightmares are filled with ways he finds to make her pay while keeping her alive and able to give him an heir and a spare. 

“Why lead those poor souls into slaughter? There’s no need for a battle,” he says to Jon. 

It occurs to Sansa that Ramsay must hate the Stark more than any other. And he must hate Jon. Both were born bastards. Her brother was raised in their home, like Robb, even against her mother’s wishes. He was loved and cared for. Perhaps not by her. She was too shallow, and she would have never tried to disappoint her Lady Mother. Robb, Arya, Bran, and Rickon never cared that he didn’t have their name.

Gods, she was an idiot. She will spend the rest of her days trying to make up to him for the stupid and callous child she had been. 

Ramsay, however, didn’t have the same luck. Roose Bolton was a cold, cruel and calculating man. Did he ever love him? Or did he see right away the monster he had made?

“Get off your horse and kneel,” Ramsay is saying. 

It will never happen. The Starks have bled and lost too much to ever kneel to anyone again. 

“I’m a man of mercy,” he says. 

She has on her skin all the proof of her mercy. She remembers her throat being sore for screaming and beginning him to stop the first night. 

She remembers her soiled sheets and the face of Maester Wolkan as he tended her wounds and gave her moon tea. 

She remembers Ramsay using the tip of one of his knives on her shoulder blade for hours, using the knife like a paintbrush and her skin as a canvas. She remembers him pounding into her from behind and Myranda’s crotch pressed against her mouth, a knife at her throat, to make his lover peak with her mouth. 

Mercy. There will be none for Ramsay. 

“You’re right,” Jon says. His voice makes the images in her head fade, and she has learned to know him. She knows what that tone of voice means. Ramsay is an animal, but Jon is a warrior. He will defeat him.

“There’s no need for a battle! Thousands of men don’t need to die. Only one of us. Let’s end this the old way: you against me.”

Clever, Jon! She told him to taunt him, to goad him to fight outside Winterfell, and he knew exactly what to say and what to do to achieve that. There is a sliver of worry for him when she looks at him, but it’s because she knows Ramsay would fight dirty. He doesn’t know what honour is. 

Ramsay laughs and says, “I keep hearing stories about you, bastard! The way people talk about you, you are the greatest swordsman who ever walked. Maybe you are that good, maybe not. I don’t know if I’d beat you, but I know that my army will beat yours! I have six thousand men, you have what…half that? Not even?”

Jon is smiling. “Aye,” he says, “you have the numbers. Will your men want to fight for you when they hear you wouldn’t fight for them?”

That hits Ramsay. He shakes a finger toward Jon, chuckles nervously and says, “He’s good. Very good. Tell me: will you let your little brother die because you’re too proud to surrender?”

“How do we know you have him?” she asks. She knows him, he is angry, he will not stay in Winterfell, he will fight them outside. That was one of the goals they had for the parlay. 

Rickon. When she left Winterfell, he was just a child. With Bran missing, he is the last true-born male son of Eddard Stark. As long as he is alive, he is a threat to Ramsay. Jon doesn’t understand that because he is a warrior, a hero. She has been a pawn in the game for so long that she has learned the moves. 

Ramsay seems surprised to hear her voice not broken by sobs and pleas. He looks at her, and she holds his gaze. 

He is a man. Men die—even bad men. 

One of his men throws Shaggy's head to the ground. The smile on Ramsay’s face as he looks at them is unholy. 

Shaggy is with Lady and Greywind, now. She thinks. Wherever their dead direwolves are, she likes to think that they are together, running in beautiful woods where there is plenty of game. She likes to think that they return home to her Father, Robb and her Mother. 

She doesn’t believe in Gods, but it’s a sweet image she keeps in her heart, to live with all the death that has befallen on her family. 

“If you want to say -” he starts, and she interrupts him. 

It’s the first time she's done that. She cannot control the anger simmering underneath her, and she wants him to know. 

“You’re going to die tomorrow, Lord Bolton.” she looks at him. She is afraid of him, but she cannot let him see it or smell it. “Sleep well,” she says, and she gallops away. 

She can’t stay there. She doesn’t care what he will tell Jon. The ways he will taunt him, she will be there for him when he comes back. She cannot stay there and look at her brother’s direwolf’s head. She cannot stay there thinking that Rickon will die and the monster will make them watch. 

As soon as she dismounts her horse, she empties her stomach into the snow. She is shaking so badly that she can barely move to the tent she shares with Jon. She sits on the cot and grabs Jon’s pillow. She hides her face in it and takes long, deep breaths, slowly calming down with his familiar smell.

Jon told her he had contingency plans for her in case they lost, but what about him? And what is she supposed to do without him?  They have only met recently, but she cannot imagine living without him. She had to live after her family’s death, she found a way, despite everything. 

She wouldn’t want to, were he to die in the battle. The thought sobers her up. There is no fear, not of her husband. She fears for Jon. Without him, nothing would make sense any more. 

He has a place in her heart no one has ever had. It’s a place she thought it had been shattered a long time before, when she realized Joffrey was a monster and the knights were not honourable or just. 

That place still exists, and he is there, with his kind eyes, his gentle hands, his icy feet and how he banishes her nightmares away. It’s the place where she stores his rare smiles and the way he says her name. 

He is her brother. Ned Stark was their father. 

And she is falling in love with him. 

Sansa is at the war council. She has been to every meeting since they were in Castle Black. They are discussing strategy. She is standing back, and he notices that she disagrees with some of their statements. 

She is right. Ramsay was like the man of his dreams. He has a face now: blue eyes and a cruel smile. He is arrogant and crazy. They don’t have the men, but he knows he can beat him. He has to. 

It’s a fine woman, your sister. I’m looking forward to having her in my bed again. 

His taunts against him bored him, mostly. The idea of that man ever touching Sansa again makes his blood boil in his veins. Davos reassured him that there is a boat ready. He has enough money to provide Sansa with a start in Essos, and Brienne told him her father would be happy to help her. She will be safe. 

She doesn’t say a word during the meeting, and he tries very hard not to take notice of how beautiful she looks in the candlelight tent with her dark cloak on. She is breathtaking. 

He sits away from her when Tormund and Davos leave  and closes his eyes for a moment when she says, “You have known him for the space of a single conversation. You and your trusted advisors sit around making your plans to defeat a man you don’t know!”

But he does. She told him about him. Ramsay Bolton has been in his nightmares for weeks. She told him to make his plans. Why is she angry now?

“I lived with him. I know the way his mind works. I know how he likes to hurt people!”

“Aye, you told me. I didn’t forget a word you said to me, Sansa.”

“Didn’t you? He will play games with you, Jon - and it looks like you’ll let him! Do you think he’s going to fall into your trap? He won’t!”

“He isn’t hiding in Winterfell, is he?”

“No. Because he likes his games too much, he lays traps and forces you to play, and you can never win!”

“He is overconfident now.”

“He plays with people. He’s far better at that than you! He’s been doing it all his life!”

“Aye, you told me already. What do you think I’ve been doing all my life, playing with broomsticks?”

He hates that Sansa steps back when he raises his voice and gets up. Did he scare her? Yet, he can stop himself from saying, “I’ve fought beyond the Wall against worse than Ramsay Bolton, I’ve defenfed the Wall from worse than Ramsay Bolton!”

“You don’t know him. Even with everything I told you, you still don’t see -”

“Then tell me. What should we do? Should we wait for the Knights of the Vale? How do we get Rickon back?”

“We’ll never get him back.” she says. He sees tears glistening in her eyes, “Rickon is Ned Stark’s trueborn son, which makes him a greater threat to Ramsay than you, a bastard, and me, a girl, his wife. As long as he lives, his claim to Winterfell will be contested, which means he won’t live long.”

There are tears on her face now, but she also spoke so coldly of their brother as if she is resigned. As if there is nothing they can do. 

“No, I won’t let it happen!”

“He will use our brother to taunt you, Jon. You need to listen to me now! No matter what he does or says, you need to follow your plan. If I know him, he will want to make a spectacle of his death, to hurt you. Don’t let him.”

“You seem resigned to the fact that our brother will die!”

She steps closer, walking toward him. “No, I'm not!” she says, “I think you are his only hope. But I’m afraid of hoping, Jon. So, listen to me, please. He wants you to make a mistake!”

“Of course he does! What should I do differently?” He has crossed the distance between them, and they’re close now. Sansa flinches when she hears him shouting—he hates himself for that—but her voice is raised as well when she says, “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about battles. Just don’t do what he wants you to do!”

“That’s good advice. Should we wait for your army and play cyvasse together meanwhile?”

“That is the only element of surprise we have. Blame me if you want, but I told you we didn’t have the numbers, and you insisted on fighting!”

“Whe pleaded with every house, the Blackfish can't help us, we’re lucky to have these many men!”

“And you know it’s not enough. That’s why I did what I did!”

“You should have trusted me.”

They’re raising their voices. The air is ripe with tension and he understands that she is scared. He understands that even if they win, she will havve Baelish to deal with. Why can’t she see that he would do anything to protect her? He is fighting a war for her. 

“I do. You know I do.”

“Battles have been won against greater odds.”

She sighs, and for a moment, they’re close enough to touch. He has to close his hands into fists balled to his sides so as not to touch her. She is scared, she is angry and it’s wrong . 

Yet, she moves another step, closing the distance between them. Her pupils are dilated. She smells sweet and warm, like home, like their bed in the morning. 

Later, even much later, he will never be able to remember who moves first, but it happens, and Sansa is in his arms. Their mouths collide, her hands are in his hair, and his arms wrap her closer and closer to him as he kisses her mouth.

It’s not a dream. It’s really happening. Their noses bump, and he licks her lips, seeking an invitation. She parts them. They drank wine before the Meeting, and he tastes it on her tongue. One of her hands roams on his shoulders and back. He cups her cheeks and softly tilts her head to deepen the kiss. 

And she kisses him back, all fire and fear. There are too many layers of clothes between them, and maybe it’s better this way. He wants to kiss her, feel her. He needs her more than he has ever needed anybody in his life. 

You’re mine. Ramsay won’t have you. Baelish won’t have you. He thinks, carding one hand through her hair, undoing her braid, feeling the silky softness of her hair between his fingers, muffling her moan with another, deeper kiss. 

It’s wrong. It’s sinful. He doesn’t care. People might come inside and see him shaming his sister, and he doesn’t care either. There is just Sansa and him. How they fit perfectly together, how her tongue is shy and tentative at first and then dances with his own, and he feels lightheaded. He feels like he could defeat the Night King, Ramsay and Cersei Lannister. 

Eventually, they break the kiss, their foreheads resting together. They are both panting in each other’s arms. 

“Jon,” she says. She looks at him, and her wild hair cascades on her shoulders. Her lips are swollen, and her cheeks are flushed. 

“Sansa,” he says. He wants to keep saying her name and tell her that she will be safe.  

“If Ramsay wins tomorrow, I’m not going with Davos. I’m not going to Littlefinger. I’m not going back to Ramsay alive. Do you understand me?”

She takes a step back, her hand still on his chest, and he says, “I won’t ever let him touch you again. I’ll protect you, I promise.”

“You don’t know if you can keep this promise. No one can protect anyone,” she says. 

She leaves the tent, and it feels like she takes all the warmth and the light with her. 

He kissed her. She told him she would kill herself if Ramsay won. He doesn’t think he could live in a world without her in it. He doesn’t want to. 

Later, he will visit Melisandre. He won’t ask her what she saw in the flames, whether her god brought him back twisted and wrong because he fell in love with his sister. 

He will ask her one thing: not to bring him back if he dies. If he dies, it will mean Ramsay has won, and Sansa will not escape; she will not go back to her husband alive. 

He doesn’t want to mourn Sansa. He doesn’t mean to come back empty, without hope, loving a dead woman. 

He will win. He needs to. 

Chapter Text

Qarth, 299 A.C. 

For a moment, Daenerys forgot the truth and talked to him like she used to. Jorah knows he is to blame for what happened. He should have never accepted the Spider’s offer. Accepting to spy on Viserys and Daenerys was probably the lowest point of his life. 

He can’t blame her for the look in her eyes when she remembered, from the way she took a step back from him and followed Xaro Xhoan Daxos . 

  His fate is in her hands, and she hasn’t decided it yet. She has allowed him to continue crossing the Red Waste with them. She hasn’t had him imprisoned once they got into Qarth. He has lodgings, water, and food. She pretends he isn’t there. Which is a punishment in itself that he has no choice but  accept it. 

He would do anything to undo what he did, but he can’t. He hasn’t begged Daenerys for forgiveness - he will never upset her and offend her heart and mind like that. He is sorry and he is ashamed of what he did. He told her that. Begging won’t bring Khal Drogo and Rhaego back. His Khaleesi deserves better. 

 She smiles as she talks to the man, and he is happy to see her smile. She looks like a goddess, and despite his jealousy toward the man, Xaro Xhoan Daxos makes her laugh. He treats her like she deserves to be treated, with the regard and respect neither Viserys nor Khal Drogo ever gave her. 

“You watch over her.” a woman behind him says. 

He turns. The woman is near a tree, wearing a mask on her face. 

“Do I know you?” he asks. 

“I know you. Jorah Mormont of Bear Island.”

The woman wears a gown and a bracelet on each forearm. She keeps her hands down, and she is slooking at him,. 

“Who are you?” he asks. 

“I’m no one. But she is the Mother of Dragons. She needs true protectors, now more than ever. They shall come day and night to see the wonder born into the world again. And when they see, they shall lust, for dragons are fire made flesh. And fire is power. Find your way  back to each other, Jorah of Bear Island, before you are both lost.”

She has dark brown eyes. He is wary of magic, but everything the woman says makes sense. They will lust, crave, and try to hurt Daeneyrs. And she isn’t letting him near her. 

The woman has disappeared, and he can’t see Daenerys either. The woman is right. He needs to find his way back to Daenerys. 

He has a bad feeling about Qarth. 

“So, tell me,” Xaro says, “how long has your manservant been in love with you?”

They are walking in the garden when he asks her about Jorah. 

“He’s not my manservant, and he’s not in love with me!” she says. 

“He’s my advisor. He is -” she trails off. She doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. The word on her lips is ‘friend’, but he betrayed her. He sold information about her to the Usurper, and she should have him arrested the moment they were granted access to Qarth. 

She didn’t. When punishment comes, it will be from her. 

Besides, Jorah is not in love with her. Therefore, which explanation does she owe to a man who clearly doesn’t know anything about them?

“I can almost always tell what a man wants.” he is saying now. 

He is wrong about Jorah. He has to.  

“And what about what a woman wants?” she asks. 

“Much more complicated. You, for example, what do you want?”

“To cross the Narrow Sea and take back the Iron Throne,” she replies.

But it’s not everything, is it? Yes, she wants the Iron Throne. It’s her birthright - but what lies in her heart? What is keeping her awake at nights?

She wants to undo Jorah’s betrayal. 

She doesn’t ever wish to have her husband back. She knows no one can give her Rhaego, alive and healthy, back to her. Her son was dead before he even breathed. He never had any chance. 

If she could undo Jorah’s betrayal, however, if she could meet him again without lying, she would. If she could unknow the truth, she would gladly do it. 

The truth broke her heart, and she can’t make sense of what is right and what is wrong.

 He betrayed her, yet why does the idea of sending him away or killing him seem impossible to contemplate?

 He tells her she is a conqueror, but the man is the same. He wants everything. He shows her his vault and asks for her hand. This will not be the last time it happens before and after she takes the Iron Throne; Xaro is just the first after Drogo. He promises her gold, ships, and men to take the Seven Kingdoms. 

And, more importantly, he tells her that the Usurper is dead. 

The summon from Daenerys comes from a maid. Not even from one of their Khalasar. He didn’t even presume to be ever allowed near her again, but she asked for him. 

Her chamber is lit by candlelight. He is happy to see her treated with lodgings befitting her station. When he was a Lord, he never cared about luxury; Lynesse cared too much. He has seen her with her lips chapped from lack of water and her skin sunburnt. Even then, when she was Khal Drogo’s young bride, she was a princess. 

The first words she says to him are: “The Usurper is dead.”

“How?” he asks. 

She tells him what she has been told: the Usurper is dead, and the Seven Kingdom are in chaos.  Stannis Baratheon proclaimed his brother’s children bastards born of incest and declared himself King. 

Eddard Stark is dead, and the North is at war with the South. If Robb Stark called the banners, this means that Maege and the girls are fighting, too. 

Daenerys wants to invade Westeros now. She doesn’t understand. She can’t see how unprepared they are.

“To win Westeros,” he tells her, “you need support from Westeros!”

“The Usurper is dead, the Starks fight the Lannisters, and the Baratheons fight each other.”

“According to your new friend who earned your trust by cutting his hand?” he says. He knows he is jealous, he knows he has no rights over her, he barely has any right to talk to her like he is doing. Daenerys doesn’t see that she will need allies in Westeros, and she has nothing to offer to any of them. 

He is sure Robb Stark would wed Daenerys if her dragons were grown. Tywyn Lannister would forcibly remove the white cloak from the kingslayer himself if Drogon, Rhaegal and Vyserion could win him the war and give him more power. 

The dragons are barely more than hatchlings, Daenerys is alone, and she is the last Targaryen. They would kill her, they would take her dragons away, and he knows, without a doubt, that his life would be over if it happened. 

She needs to know who she is dealing with if she hopes of being Queen. Things would be easier if Robert Baratheon were still alive. Vacuum of powers of that magnitude upset people, noble of small Houses and smallfolk alike and she would have no chance with them either. 

It’s too soon. 

“The time to strike is now! We need to find ships and an army or we’ll spend the rest of our lives rotting away at the edge of the world!”

Did she realize what she just said? She said we as if he were still part of her life. It doesn’t matter; he decides. He will give her his counsel, as he has always done, and he will be honest with her. 

“Rich men do not become rich by giving more than they get. They’ll give you ships and soldiers and they’ll own you forever. Moving carefully is the hard way, but it’s the right way.”

“Because you have always been the paragon of virtue, haven’t you, Ser Jorah?” she asks. 

“No, but I have never given you false counsel either, Khaleesi. I know the opportunity before you seems like the last you’ll ever have, but you must -”

“Did you listen to your own advice when the Spider asked you to spy on me? Do not treat me like a child, Ser!”

“No, Khaleesi. And I’ll regret it to my dying day, but we are not talking about me, are we? I only want -”

She turns and snaps at him, “What do you want? Tell me! Why didn’t you go home? Wasn’t it what you prayed for?”

“Because I want to see you on the Iron Throne.”

“Even now? Why?”

“Aye, even now. You have a good claim. A title. A birthright. But you have something more than that.”

If he loses his head because of it, so be it, but Jorah can’t help moving closer to her as he speaks, “You may cover up and deny it, but you have a gentle heart. You would not only be respected and feared, but you would be loved. Someone who can rule and should rule. Centuries come and go without a person like that coming into the world.”

She is looking at him now. There is no anger in her eyes any longer, in fact he sees tears glistening in them. 

His voice almost breaks when he says, “There are times when I look at you, and I still can’t believe you’re real.”

He loves her. He has been in love with her since he first saw her on her wedding day. There is a tragic irony in the fact that he was desperate to go back home, to take the Black and withstand his father’s disappointment because Lynesse left him alone - he wanted to go home, and he found it in her eyes, he found strength in her courage, and honour in her cause.

He spied on her, but he never told her a lie. And he draws a breath because he realizes that he has said too much. His love for Daenerys is his problem, not something to saddle her with, not after what he has done. He is not worthy of her. 

“Yet you betrayed me,” she whispers, and there are tears now falling down her cheeks. “And against my better judgement, I can’t bear the thought of sending you away or having you killed.” she sighs, “so what would you have me to do as my advisor?”

They are no longer talking about Westeros. If the Gods are good - and in his experience, they don’t particularly care about him - he might live to see her become the Queen he knows she can be. From afar, maybe. 

“I will leave if my presence upsets you, Khaleesi. I never meant to hurt you. If you don’t believe anything about me ever again, please know this. I would die for you before I hurt you.”

“But you did.” She turns and doesn’t look at him when she asks, “And about Westeros?”

“Make your own way. Find your own ship. You only need one. The allies you need are in Westeros, not Qarth.”

“And how do I get the ship?”

“I’ll find it for you, and then I’ll leave if you wish. A sound ship with a good captain.”

“I look forward to meeting him.” 

She doesn’t say he can leave, but she doesn’t ask him to stay either. She is hurt. She is a strong woman, but he knows his betrayal has cut her to the quick. 

He also knows he has been dismissed. He saw her tears and told her he would leave. She didn’t say anything. He supposes he is lucky that she doesn’t want his head on a spike.

He bows his head. 

“Khaleesi,” he says. 

 Find your way back to each other, Jorah of Bear Island, before you are both los.t

He will. Whatever it takes. 

Her dragons are gone. She shouldn’t have left her chambers. Irri is dead, her guards are gone, and all for begging ships from those people. Someone took her children, and she wasn’t there to stop them. 

They are alive. She knows that. She can feel them in her heart. That is the only consolation she has. Dragons are worth more alive than dead. 

She is staring at the empty cages, and she wishes she had never set foot in Qarth. People here have been deceiving and belittling her since the beginning. And what is she without her dragons? She is just a girl. A little princess with no friends, no allies and a broken heart. 

She hears footsteps her mind still stuck with the image of her dead people and the empty cages. She turns, and it’s Jorah! The relief of seeing him is staggering. She thought he would leave, she was sure he would leave her, that was the reason why she begged for ships. 

Why would he allow himself to be so open to her and reveal so much of his feelings if not because he meant to go away?

“You’re back!” She says. And she knows in her heart that she doesn’t care about what he did before he met her. She is so happy that he is there, that he didn’t leave that nothing else matters. 

“As soon as I heard. Do you know anything?” 

She shakes her head. He is concerned. His hand is on the hilt of his sword. He was there when her dragons were born. He played with them, they like Jorah. They trust him. 

“Irri is dead,” she says. 

“I know. She was a good -”

“She’s dead. She died alone. She died for me and I couldn’t protect her”

“Doreah?”

“We can’t find her. She must be dead too. I let my people out of the Red Waste and into the slaughterhouse,”

"I should have been here,”  he says.

“You went to find a ship. And I didn’t think you would be back. But I’m glad you did.”

It’s the truth. There will be time to grieve for the lives lost, but not having Jorah in her life would destroy her. It would be even worse than what she feels now that her dragons have been taken. As long as Jorah is with her, she has hope. 

“My place is by your side. I shouldn’t have left you alone with these people because of my shame,” he says. 

“These people?”

“They are not to be trusted.”

“And who is to be trusted? Who are my people? The Targaryens? I only knew one, my brother, and he would let one thousand men rape me if it had got him the crown! The Dothraki? Most of them turned on me the day that Khal Drogo fell from his horse’ You? I did trust you despite everything I still do,”

“I will never lie to you again, Khaleesi. And your people are in Westeros.”

“The people in Westeros don’t know I’m alive,”

“They’ll know soon enough.”

“And then what? They’ll pray for my return? They’ll wave dragon banners and shout my name? That was what my brother believed, and he was a fool!”

He is still here; he believes in you. Why does he? Why don’t you hate him? she thinks. 

“You are not your brother,” he says. “Trust  me, Khaleesi.”

“There it is,” she says, hugging her arms, “trust me.”

She can’t look at him. She doesn’t understand herself. She is glad she is here. She told him she still trusts him. Why is he saying those words? What does he want from her?

“And it’s you, I should trust Ser Jorah? Even when we both know you betrayed me? Only you? What good did it do to me? I don’t need trust any longer. I don’t want it. I don’t have room for it.”

She stills when he touches her shoulder. He hears him say, “You’re too young to -”

“And you are too familiar! Gods forgive me. I trust you still, but don’t  ever patronize me again!”

She looks at him as he bows his head and takes a step back. It’s the dragon, she thinks. She hurts him, even if it’s the last thing she wants to do; even if he hurt her. 

“Forgive me, Khaleesi,” he says. 

And isn’t it a conundrum? She has forgiven him, and her heart has, but her heart is brittle and battered, tired of hurting and mending itself together. 

“No one can survive in the world without help. No one,” he says. 

Which is why his betrayal hurt so deeply. She believed she wasn’t alone. She believed Jorah would be by her side always. 

And he was. Or he wouldn’t be here. 

“Let me help you, please. Tell me how.”

“Find my dragons,” she says. 

An impossible quest for her knight, who betrayed and loves her. A quest for his Queen, who is heartbroken but still believes in him because her blood, her bones, and her heart tell her so. 

She doesn’t tell him to be careful when he leaves. She doesn’t tell him that she is sorry that she can’t forgive him wholly and completely, for he deserves it. He chose her. All her life, she was never chosen. She was a burden, something to be sold to the highest bidder—a means to an end. 

Jorah chose her. Even before she hatched her dragons, he loves her despite everything that happened. And she doesn’t know what to think or what to feel. 

He finds the woman in the garden. She is still wearing a mask, and she is painting symbols on a naked man 

“Jorah the Andal,” she greets him. 

“You came for the dragons.” the woman says after she explains to him what she is doing to the man. 

“Do you have them? Where are they?”

“Draw your sword. See what your steel is worth.”

The woman’s piercing eyes bore into his. 

“You want her forgiveness. You want to please the Mother of Dragons.”

Yes. It’s true. He wants Daenerys to forgive him, not because he deserves it, but because she is at war with herself because of him. Yes, he wants to please her. He wants her to see that his words and deeds are worthy of her. 

“You love her,”  she says.

He does. He doesn’t think he hides his feelings particularly well. And after last night, it would be preposterous even to think of denying them. He loves her. He has for a long time. But his love will not help him find her dragons.

“Where are the dragons?” he asks. 

“Will you betray her again, Jorah the Andal?” she asks. “Will you betray her again?”

How does she know? How can she know? Only Daenerys and him know about it. She never mentioned their conversation to anyone, even if he didn’t understand why. Who is that woman?

“Never!”

“The thief you seek is with her now.”

Jorah runs. 

He was right. These people cannot be trusted. Xaro Xhoan Daxos and the warlock Pyat Pree have conspired to take her dragons. It’s a massacre.  She has been used to stage a coup, and they want her forever in the House of the Undying. 

Xaro’s betrayal doesn’t even surprise her. She never trusted the man, his tales and his promises. 

She must run away, find her dragons, and leave Qarth behind. She should burn it and pour salt over its charred remains. Corruption and greed fill the place, the magic is unsettling, and she hasn’t been able to think clearly for days. 

When Jorah appears behind one of the illusions Pyat Pree has created, her heart fills with so much relief that she fears it will burst. He came back again. He saved her again. He might have spied on her for a dead usurper King, but he has always been true to her. 

What does it matter that he sent ravens to the Spider when he has saved her life again? When he has been her strength when she could barely walk and go through the motions?

Would Drogo still be alive? Maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t Jorah's words that made Drogo's men rape Mirri Maz Duur and pillage her temple. It wasn’t his words that made her husband ignore his wound. 

Would Rhaego be alive? She will never know, and she will never have children. She has only her dragons and Jorah. 

She takes his arm and follows him. She knows, at that moment, that she will follow him anywhere, just like he will. 

“And what of my magic?” She asks him, hours later, in the place where they’ve hidden. 

He wants her to leave her children behind; he wants her to go to Astapor, but she can’t leave them behind. “You saw me step into the fire. You watched the witch burn. What did the flames did to me? Do you remember?”

He looks at her, and it feels like it’s the first time it’s happening. She feels the weight of his stare. She sees the fire in his eyes, and how could she miss all of it before?

His voice breaks when he says, “Until my last breath, I will remember.” His whisper goes through her heart and soul. 

Did she live without him? S he did, but she doesn’t remember how. She doesn't want to be parted from him any longer.  

“After I’ve forgotten my mother’s face,” he says. 

She reaches out and touches his face. She missed him. She needs him. She wants him to be by her side more than ever now. His skin is warm, and his beard tickles the skin of her palm.

“They are my children. Don’t abandon us now,” she whispers. 

She will tell him about the curse later. She will lay in his arms and reveal what the witch told her. She will cry in his arms, and he will tell her that she is a miracle in itself, that he doesn’t believe in curses, and that he believes in her. 

“Take me to them,” she says.  

He takes her hand in his, kisses her knuckles, and whispers, “Aye, Khaleesi. I will never forsake you.”

He nods. He will be by her side, not because he swore oaths to serve her. He will stay because he is Jorah Morrmont, and she is Daenerys Targaryen, and it’s their destiny. 

She can feel the magic in the place simmering, humming beneath her skin. It’s dark and it smells dusty and faintly of berries. She takes a torch from the wall and looks around. She hears her dragons screeching. She walks toward the sound. 

Jorah is not with her. She is not surprised. The Warlocks don’t want him. They were clear that they want her there. Well, she has come. They will learn not to steal from a dragon. 

She enters a circular room. There are doors, and there is no sign of her dragons. Something tells her that she needs to be careful. The magic she can almost taste is dark, like the one who stole Drogo away from her. 

She opens one of the doors. There is no rhyme or reason in her choice. She feels like any of these doors will lead her to something, but she doesn’t know what. She knows she won’t see her children if she doesn’t look at what’s beyond the doors. 

There is snow, and the sky is white. A huge tree with red leaves towers over the place. A face is carved into the tree, and red sap, like tears of blood, trickles gently on the face. She sees two wolves under the tree: one is white, an albino with blood-red eyes. The other wolf is red, like copper. They lie underneath the tree together. 

She knows, in the way one instinctively knows things in dreams, that the two wolves belong together. They are mates. She takes a step forward and it’s the red wolf that perks up. Fangs bared when she sees her. 

She knows the wolf is female. She knows she is dangerous. She knows the white wolf will tear her from limb to limb if she dares touch the red one. She walks past them, snow is falling now, but she doesn’t feel cold. The light has faded, it’s night, there are fires burning, swords scattered on the ground, blood on the snow. 

She can’t make out the two people on the ground at fist, when she does, she feels her heart in her throat: it’s Jorah! He looks older than he does now. He is in her arms, bleeding. 

She can’t hear what she is saying, only glimpses of it: “you can’t leave me. You promised you would live for me!”

She - her future self - is wearing white fur coated with blood. She is sobbing, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“It was the only way, Khaleesi. It’s not your fault,” he rasps. 

Daenerys watches herself, older than she is now, kiss Jorah. Her movements evoke desperation and fear, but they also evoke familiarity. 

“Stay with me,” she is saying to the man in her arms. There is blood on her face. Is it hers? Is it Jorah’s? 

She steps back, turns and she is in the throne room in King’s Landing. Sunlight gives the room an almost ethereal aspect. The throne of her ancestors is there. She shortens the distance between them. She almost touches it when she hears a child laughing. She spies from the corner of her eyes a blonde child running into the throne room, her long hair kept in a braid with a green ribbon. 

She wants to touch the throne and sit on it, but she is drawn to the little girl laughing. Her torch forgotten, she follows her voice. She crosses a hall, and is in a chamber.

Jorah is there, the little girl on his knees, and he smiles when he looks at her.

“This is not real,” she says, “it’s dark magic.”

“Is it a dream, Khaleesi?” he asks, “Is it yours or mine?”

The child has blue eyes and long blonde hair. She looks like Jorah. 

“Mother!” the child says. 

“I cannot have children,” she tells Jorah, her eyes filling with tears.

“And yet Rhaella exists.” He says. 

“You are looking for me,” she says.

“I am. But I know you. You will save yourself.”

“The icy man is coming,” The child says. “He wants an eternal night. He will kill us all!”

She furrows her brow. “No one is going to touch you, sweetling.”

The child is hers. Her blood is screaming inside of her. 

“No one will harm you,” he says to the girl.  

The child, Rhaella, looks between them and asks, “Do you promise?”

Jorah is by her side.”If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake.”

“Me either. But my dragons...”

“Many years ago, you asked me not to forsake you. I’m not. Win your fight, Daenerys. I will be with you.”

“I hated you.”

“But you forgave me. And we have so many adventures to live together.”

“You’re not real.”

“I am, in your heart. I’ve been there for a long time.”

He is right. Vision, dream or whatever he is. Jorah has been in her heart for a long time. She has just started to see him, to feel him. 

“Free your dragons, Daenerys. I will be there, with you, every step of the way,” he says. 

He cups her face with his hands, and it feels real, “I know you will prevail, Daenerys.”

“Since when do you call me Daenerys?” she asks, but lingers into his caress.

“It’s a long story, one you need to live. I will always be there.”

“Good, because I  cannot bear to be parted from you.”

Jorah presses a chaste kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be waiting,”

She turns her back to Jorah, and the lights fade. She is in the House of the Undying, and when she steps inside the circular room, her dragons are there. And they’re chained. 

She finds out she is chained, too. The Warlock’s magic awakened when her dragons were born. They want to chain them and harness their power, her magic, season after season, forever.

Her dragons are children and are the magic of old Valyria. 

However, the warlocks have forgotten two things: she is their mother, and the dragons, small as they are, are fire. 

Ad she is the Unburnt. 

 “Dracarys,” she says. 

It’s a small fire at first. It catches the sleeve of the Warlock’s tunic. Her dragons are babies, still - but the fire comes. It’s hot and white, she feels it on her skin, it tickles. She feels it in her soul. It’s exhilarating. 

Her children defend their mother and kill the Warlock. They burn his magic to ash, freeing themselves and her from the shackles. 

Parlour tricks, dark magic, it doesn’t matter. Fire purifies it all. 

She is free. She needs to go back to Jorah now. 

Only Jorah is outside the House of the Undying. How did he know where she would appear? She will never know, but he is there. It’s night, but she can see him, and he sees her. 

It’s unbecoming of her, it’s unlike anything she has ever done, but she places her dragons on the ground and  flees into his arms as soon as she sees him. 

His betrayal is in the past. He is there now. He has saved her every day since they met, and she can’t imagine not having him in her life. 

His arms hesitate for a moment before resting around her shoulders. She hides her face in his chest. His heart beats steadily, and his arms are warm on her skin. 

“Khaleesi,” he breathes.

She looks up at him. If Drogo had lived perhaps she would have grown to truly love him. She would have loved their child. 

She already loved Jorah. He was already precious to her before she lost everything and was reborn into the fire. 

He is precious to her now, in the half-dark of that warm night in Qarth. She stands on her tiptoes and brushes his lips with hers once, twice. His arms support her at her waist, and her arms are around his neck. She smiles against his lips when he kisses her. 

“Are you sure, Khaleesi?” he asks between kisses. 

“Yes, I am. Don’t ever lie to me again.”

“Never!” 

“Good,” she kisses his lips again. He tastes like the home she never had. She is in her arms, and she feels alive. 

“What happened?” he asks. 

“I will tell you, but later. There are things we need to do first. Where is Kovarro?”

She is still in his arms, but she can see his eyes focus immediately on her question,

“Guarding the perimeter,”

“Good. We need to pay a visit to Xaro. And then, my knight, we will talk.”

After they have closed the vault and taken the gold from the merchant’s house, after she stops hearing Doreah’s screams and she is confident her betrayal won’t weight on her, they reach an inn. 

In the morning they will buy a ship, they will depart for Astapor, she will buy an army and get closer to Westeros and the Iron Throne. 

She waits for Jorah in her chamber. He whispered to her that her Dothraki didn’t need to see them together right now. She will be safer that way. 

He loves her. He showed her this, and deep down,, she has known for a long time. He has also been in her heart almost as long. 

He is her first real friend, the only person she knows she can trust, and his betrayal did not change that. He saved her even from her recklessness. Her mind goes back to him, to their first meeting, as she waits for him and changes her clothes. 

He was there when she was a scared bride, and he made her feel safe enough to lead her Khalasar through the Red Waste. 

He wants her on the Iron Throne, and he never asked anything for himself.

She looks forward to starting her life with him. 

Meereen, 303 C. A.

They built a life together.

Jorah is not a materialist man. She knows that, but in the years they spent travelling together, he kept mementoes. There are dry leaves in a book. The book is a small volume, it was in his lodgings in the Balerion, and the dried flowers come from a bush near the inn in Qarth, she remembers the flower, he gave it to her, and she lost it in his bed the first night on the ship. 

There is his blue cravat, folded in a drawer, the ring with the dragon insignia, a few stones from Astapor, a leather bracelet which broke but he never got rid of because it was a gift from his aunt Maege,  parchments with notes written in the middle of the night while sharing ideas for their official meetings. There is a dagger she gave him, when they took Meereen. There is a copy of Robert Baratheon’s pardon. His armour is already in the chest, and she knows she could have Missandei collect Jorah’s things before they leave.

She can’t delegate that task. Every small thing in that room is there for a reason. Years together, stolen moments of bliss, secrets shared in the dark—all she has to remind her of the man she loves are a few trinkets. 

There is a letter. He must have been in this room before going to look for her because he had been confined in another chamber after the assassination attempt while they waited to know whether he was infected with grey scale. 

The letter is under his old dark green jerkins, which he wore in Pentos when they met. Did he know she would be the one putting his things away in a chest? Did he expect Missandei to give her the letter? She is the only one who knows. She is their friend and ally. She blinks. 

The time has come. She has some Westerosi allies. He wouldn’t like it if she allied with the Iron Islands; and he would advise her to be cautious, but she thinks he would appreciate Yara Greyjoy and her brother. 

She hopes he would. 

The first days after she was back in Meereen are hazy to her. She didn’t know one could exist and breathe while grieving so deeply. She knows her people were worried about her. She knows Tyrion is relieved that she is making plans, that she is not numb any more. 

She cannot stay in Meereen. There is peace, now - however fragile it is, and every corner of the Pyramid reminds her of Jorah. 

They were happy before the men snuck into the pyramid. He made her happy. They talked about going to Westeros before winter came because he is from the North. He always told her that the next winter would be the worst in history. Maesters have been warning people in the North for years, even when he was still the Lord of Bear Island.

She will talk to Daario and give him power in Meereen. The sellsword is loyal to her. He still dreams that time and distance will make her fall into his bed, and forget the love of her life, It will never happen. 

She is Jorah’s. He is hers. Neither of them cares or believes in Gods, but they have exchanged oaths. He never broke his word to her, and she isn’t going to break hers. 

Until the day I die, I’ll remember. He once told her. It looked like the deepest admission of feelings and devotion she could ever have at the time. She now knows it’s not. 

She sits on his bed, holding the letter in her hands. He promised and vowed to fight for them and return to her. She believes him with everything she is. However, it is not a good-bye letter, and she refuses to believe it. 

She misses him. She doesn’t cry. She has run out of tears since he left Vaes Dothrak. She looks at the ring on her index finger. She never took it off since he gave it to her. 

He told her that night, " I will never leave you. I will always love you." He repeated this promise every night before and after that. 

Daenerys,

Seeing you fly on Drogon has been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. I once saw you enter a fire with nothing but grief and determination in your heart. Seeing you ride your dragon was another miracle I was granted to witness. 

It has been my honour and privilege to be by your side. I am lucky. I thought my life was over before I met you. In many ways, it was until I met you. 

You gave my life purpose. You gave me my honour back. You gave me strength when I thought life had squeezed it all out of me. 

I have loved you since the first time I saw you. 

I will fight for us, my love. I have so much to live for. 

I apologize for forgetting, for a moment, how loved I am. 

I will find you. I will defeat this sickness. I will come back for you. I will always find you. 

Promise me you will live. Take the Seven Kingdoms, my Queen. 

I will be there with you. 

Yours forever.

She blinks. It’s not a goodbye letter. It’s Jorah leaving her something to hold on to, a physical object to grasp while she is waiting for him. 

She will talk to Tyrion. He wouldn’t be her choice as Hand, but he is smart and ruthless when he has to, and he knows the politics of King’s Landing better than Jorah.

The man she loves spent years telling her about the North, the Riverlands, the Iron Islands, the Stormlands, the Crownlands. 

He spent the night in her arms, grieving for his lost kin when they got news of the Red Wedding. 

Baratheons, Lannisters, Starks, the wheel keeps on spinning, crushing good people, empowering undeserving ones. It needs to end. 

She is going to break the wheel.

Chapter Text

In the end, she goes to the tent because she is not Cersei Lannister. She knows her words hurt Jon. She knows what she has done. None of what she said is a lie, but truths can be used to manipulate just as well as lies. 

Shame, regret, desire - everything she is feeling is not as important as the idea that it could be the last time she sees him. She doesn’t want their last words to be ripe with anger. 

Whatever happens today, she cannot bear the idea of not holding him one more time, of him not knowing that she is grateful for all he is doing for her and that it’s not his fault if she is twisted and broken. He tried. He did more than anyone has done for her since she was a child. 

When she takes a few steps into the tent, he is dressed. He turns and looks at her. He is pale, but his eyes are bright, and she realizes she isn’t sorry she wrote to Baelish. 

“Sansa,” he says.

She takes his cloak from a chair and shortens the distance between them. 

“Why aren’t you wearing an armour?” she asks. 

“It slows me down,” he replies with a shrug of his shoulders. 

They kissed. It happened. She is not Cersei Lannister, even if she kissed her brother and tried to manipulate him. She was scared—she was terrified—and she still is. 

Perhaps, after today, she will never be afraid any more. She will be safe in Winterfell. Or, perhaps, she will drink the vial of poison the old woman gave her. Darkness and oblivion sound much better than the life she has led. 

Except for Jon. He is the best thing that ever happened to her. She doesn’t want to lose him. 

“You will not be reckless out there, Jon.”

“I won’t.”

“He will play games with you to make you fall. Don’t play.”

“Even if it saves Rickon?”

She has already grieved Rickon once. She has been grieving him again since she read Ramsay’s letter. She is a terrible, selfish person. She doesn’t want to lose Jon.  

“You can’t save him if you fall. You must survive.”

She helps him with his cloak and clasps it at his throat, her fingers lingers on his neck for a moment. 

“Sansa -” he trails off. 

“You must not fall, promise me!”

“I swear I will try,” he says. 

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”

 He closes the distance between them and takes her face in his hands, “I swear he will never touch you again. No one will ever harm you.”

She feels the tears in her eyes. And they are not a weapon. It’s her heart bursting into her chest because she believes him, even if life has taught her otherwise. 

“You will be safe here,” he says. He presses a long, lingering kiss on her forehead, and she closes her eyes, letting her tears fall. 

There are words she wants to say, but her mouth refuses to move, and she can only take one of his hands in hers and squeeze it, trying to offer comfort, hoping he knows how much she believes in him. 

“I must go,” he says. 

She nods and steps back. They are running out of time, and she has too many things she wishes to tell him. There are apologies, promises, and wishes. They will have to wait. 

She watches him go and doesn’t move from her spot. 

We lost so much: Father, Mother, Robb. Our people in Winterfell. Don’t let me lose him as well. I won’t survive it. She thinks, wishing she still believe in the gods. She found comfort in praying during the Battle of Blackwater. 

She is more scared than she was that day. This is the biggest gamble of her life: she is risking not only Winterfell and the North but also Jon. 

She steps outside the tent and looks at the sky. It’s dawning. The men are leaving camp and they will fight in a short while. Aa young woman approaches her and curtsies. She doesn’t remember ever seeing her in the camp.

“For you, m’lady,” she says, handing her a scroll. 

She looks toward the men who are leaving the camp. Jon, Tormund, and other men from the houses who pledged to them are leading the contingent.

She recognizes the mockingbird sigil. She reads the scroll. She doesn’t smile, but there is a sliver of hope in her heart. Part of her thinks she is just changing monsters, swapping Ramsay for Petyr Baelish. 

She knows there is no honour in anything she does, so she is surprised to realize that she doesn’t care. Perhaps she will later. She will deal with Baelish and find a way to neutralize him after they take Winterfell back. 

Jon is fighting a war for her, and she is going to fight for him—for them. Her battlefield is different but not less bloody. 

She is not Cersei Lannister, but the woman taught her how to play the game. She is not going to be a pawn any more. 

She told him Ramsay would play games. He believed her. Ramsay Bolton has become a fixture of his nightmares for the past weeks. Every night, in his dreams, he hurts Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon. Every night, he fails. 

He cannot fail his family now. He cannot fail Sansa. 

He sees him. He is dragging someone with a rope. It’s Rickon. 

The last time he saw his brother, he was a child. He was a sweet child who worshipped his older brothers and had an easy laugh. Now, he is tall. He still has a mop of curly hair, but he is gangly, and looks terrified. 

Ramsay tilts his arm up, he can see the dagger from where he is, and for one terrible moment, he thinks he will use it on his brother and kill him right in front of him. His blood runs cold. 

Ramsay cuts the rope binding Rickon’s wrists, and he feels like he can breathe again. He will dangle his brother in front of him and whatever he does or does not he will lose. If he charges and tries to save his brother, they will lose the formation and the only scrap of a plan they have. If he stays, against all his instincts, his brother will die, and it will be his fault. 

Rickon starts to run, and he exchanges glances with Ser Davos, who decided to join him anyway after he had a brief talk to Sansa last night and with Tormund. 

“Don’t,” Tormund says. 

“He’s my brother,” he says. 

If he goes, they will lose. Sansa will die. But Rickon is running toward him, and he can save him. 

What kind of man wouldn’t save his brother?

One life versus the lives of his men, the ones who are fighting for him. 

He is on his horse, galloping toward his brother before he can process what’s really happening. 

Ramsay is toying with them. The first arrow misses by a long shot. He shouts at Rckon to deviate and turn to his right, but he doesn’t know whether his brother hears him. The second and third arrows hit closer. 

He can taste copper in his mouth, and his heartbeat is almost deafening. He prays his men will not follow him. They can still take down Ramsay without him. He told Tormund to keep fighting if he fell. He told Davos to bring Sansa to safety. He said so many things, and none of them matter if he doesn’t survive and save his brother. 

The fourth arrow narrowly misses his brother, and he feels stuck in one of his nightmares. It doesn’t matter how fast he runs; Ramsay is faster. 

His eyes almost don’t register the white form that tackles Rickon to the ground a moment before another arrow flies over them at first. It’s Ghost, and it’s protecting his brother on the ground. He can’t turn, he can’t do anything, but he hears galloping behind him, and a moment later, a Hornwood man is beside him. 

“Bring my brother back to camp!” he says. 

Here on the battlefield he is not a bastard, he is not Lord Commander of the Wall, he is not the thing Lady Melisandre brought back from the dead. He is a soldier, a warrior and they are all brothers in arms, for Winterfell. 

For Sansa. He is fighting for her. 

Their strategy is gone. He is aware of that. He can only feel pride for the men who shield the Hornwood soldier and his brother. Ghost is at his side. 

He charges. His men follow him. 

It’s a massacre. They knew it would come to that. Their men knew that and chose to die for House Stark. There is blood and mud everywhere: his men, the horses, the Boltons’ - his vision is a red haze. He swings his sword and cuts down man after man. 

War is never easy. It is senseless violence. The Boltons’ archers keep loosing arrows, killing indistinctly. They are holding back because they can’t lose men. They have honour, or so he wants to think. 

He didn’t go South when his father was murdered. He didn’t join Robb when he called the banners. He didn’t look for his sisters when news came that Arya was lost and Sansa was in King’s Landing. 

Every man he kills, every time he swings his sword, it screams his regret for not aiding his family. He chose honour over love, and what did it bring him? His own brothers killed him, his family gone, and he was brought back jagged and twisted. 

Tormund hoists him up from the ground at some point. Wun Wun is there and points at the men with a grunt. He needs to hold on, he thinks. 

The Boltons are surrounding them and if they don’t break the lines they will be slaughtered. They surround them. Shields with flayed men all around them. Spears kill men and he looks around for a way out. Is Rickon safe? Will Sansa be safe? 

He can’t die. 

There is infantry surrounding them, the Bolton's men behind them, and the only thing separating them from the fight is mountains of bodies. 

Their carefully planned strategy has failed, and he can only look around for a weak spot in the enemy’s formation. 

They don’t have enough men. They have lost too many already and they are fucked. 

“With me, lads, break their lines!” Davos cries. 

He fights, sees Wun Wun tearing men away from the Boltons’ formation, and sees Wildings, Mormonts, Hornwood, Mazin, and Stark men fight. 

They will go down fighting. He knows that. The infantry advances, and his arm is starting to ache. Ramsay is nowhere near the fight, and he needs to stop him. The battle won’t be won until he dies. 

They fall back, and there is commotion around him. Tormund and his men fight their way past him, running, sending him to the ground. 

He can’t breathe. He needs to fight. He needs to hold on. He needs to find Ramsay or all of this will have been for naught. He hears men fighting, he smells the blood, the mud, the shit and the piss of the battle. 

He will die suffocated or trampled by his own men if he doesn’t fight. He does. It’s dark, and it’s hot, and his heart is hammering in his chest as he fights his way up in the sea of men he’s into. 

He emerges and takes a deep breath. He looks around. Everyone around him is either running or fighting. They are still surrounded. He shares a look with Davos, who looks unharmed and sees Tormund fighting Smalljon Umber. 

When he hears the horns, he is still stuck, unable to move. His heart drums in his chest. She was right. Ramsay is overconfident. He has used his men as cannon fodder, and he is not prepared for the onslaught of the Knights of the Vale. 

It occurs to him that he must not have sent scouts, and he thinks Sansa must have relied on that. 

Ramsay flees, Wun Wun and Tormund are by his side. He runs after him. 

He is outside Winterfell. He hasn’t been in his home for over six years. He runs after Ramsay, and he is not surprised to see the gates closed. It won’t stop him. 

Even the gates of his home can do very little to stop Wun Wun. He breaches the gates. 

The Free Folks are with him. His father used to say that a man found their true friends in battle. He was right. Those men who have nothing to gain from fighting for him are bleeding and helping him. They are the ones who fight the Bolton men. 

Wun Wun is shot full of holes. He wants to touch him, and he almost does, but another arrow pierces his eye. 

Ramsay Bolton killed the last giant. 

It is the last life he takes. This he swears on his father in the courtyard of his childhood home. 

“You suggested one-on-one combat, didn’t you?” Ramsay says. He looks around, noticing that he is alone and that the Free Folk are all pointing their arrows at him. 

“I’ve reconsidered. I think that sounds like a wonderful idea!”

He drops Longclaw to the ground and grabs a shield when he sees that Ramsay is ready to shoot an arrow. 

He stalks toward him and parries three arrows. He idly notices that the shield he is using bears the Mormont sigil. It’s fitting, in a way. Stark and Mormonts died at the Red Wedding, so it’s only fair that a Stark using a Mormont shield eliminates the last Bolton.

He swings the shield and hits Ramsay in the face. He knocks him to the ground. Sansa told him that she believed her husband was a weak man. He is a monster, yes, but he is not strong. He is not a fighter. 

The blood and mud on his skin itches, but he pays no mind to that. He punches Ramsay. For his home, for Robb, his unborn baby and his wife, for Lady Catelyn, for Bran and Rickon, for Theon. For Sansa, for her nightmares, for the scars he knows she has that he has not seen, for the fear in her eyes, for her tears, for her innocence, for the blood she shed in her home. 

It’s not enough. It will never be enough. 

He feels the skin on his knuckles split under his leather gloves. He feels blood trickling down between his fingers. It doesn’t matter. He is a bloody creature. He doesn’t stop. 

Ramsay keeps smiling as the punches continue, and he thinks his home shouldn’t be soiled by his traitor blood. Sansa, however, bled in her home. No one came to save her. It’s only fair that the bastard who did this to her, who taunted them with Rickon’s wolf and his brother’s life, bleeds out in his home. 

He feels her. Later, he will be sure about that. When she gets inside Winterfell and stops to look at them, he feels Sansa. He stops short of bashing that monster’s head in. He looks at her. 

For once she is not wearing any masks. It’s the woman he has learned to know, the one he spoke to at night in his solar and in their tent. There is no judgement in her eyes. There is no contempt, no glee for their victory. 

Ramsay is not his to kill. He hasn’t seen the scars on Sansa’s body. She has let him glimpse the ones in her mind and heart - and he knows she needs to hold her husband’s life in her hands. 

She told him she wanted revenge and that she felt she had become like them. He thinks she is wrong. He thinks she is the best of all of them. She deserves to have revenge, justice or whatever she wants.

He lets Ramsay go. 

They won. Winterfell and the North belong to the Starks again. 

He can breath now. Sansa is alive. He hasn’t lost her. 

Hours later, he wouldn’t know how long it’s been, he finds Sansa with Rickon and the Maester. He has cleaned up the blood and the mud from his face, and the skin on his knuckles is broken and purple. He thinks there is not a single part of his body that is not bruised, but he doesn’t care. 

They are already burning the men outside Winterfell. Ramsay is in the kennels. For the first time since Theon took Winterfell, the Stark banners are hanging from the walls again. The Starks are back, and he imagines the next few weeks will be no less challenging than any battle. 

Rickon is asleep when he gets into the room. Sansa is sitting on a chair at his bedside, and she is nodding at something the Maester is saying. 

“How is he?” he asks. 

“Shaken, the Maester gave him something to calm him down.”

“I thought he was going to kill him in front of me. I –”

“He is alive. He told me about Ghost and you.”

“Is he all right? Did Ramsay -”

“He said he didn’t touch him. Didn’t feed him, but it could have been so much worse.”

He lets out a sigh. His heart aches for his brother. 

 “You were right,” he says. 

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I thought Rickon was lost. You brought him back.”

“Ghost saved him.”

“And whose direwolf is he?” there is a hint of a smile playing on her lips. 

“They came for you. The Knights of the Vale.”

“Yes. But everyone saw you running after Ramsay. We won.”

“You don’t look like we did.”

 “Where is he, Jon?” she asks. 

It’s not over for her. It will not be over until the monster she was forced to marry is dead. 

He tells her. She lets out a chuckle. It sounds bitter and full of disgust. 

“Winterfell is yours, Lady Stark,” he tells her. 

“It’s ours , Jon. Can you watch over Rickon? I’ll be back in a while.”

She won the battle. She outplayed her husband, he suspects she is playing a game with Baelish, and she looks exhausted. She looks like she hates herself. She looks like the ghost of their father is haunting her. 

He will be there for her when she comes back. He is not leaving her. 

There was a moment, hours before when the Knights of the Vale surrounded the Boltons’ men where she smiled. She was happy. It lasted a few seconds, then Littlefinger spoke, breaking that fleeting feeling. 

“The North is yours, my dear. And this is just the beginning of what we can do together.”

No. She is twisted, distorted, broken apart, and haphazardly mended back together, but she is not, and she will never be, like Petyr Baelish. She is not like any of them. And yet, she forsook honour, fought dirty, and outplayed her husband to take her home back. 

And yet, she kissed Jon last night - and she wants more. Provided that he doesn’t hate her now. 

And yet, she is watching her husband’s bloodied face, and she feels absolutely nothing. There is no fear, no hatred. She is tired of being scared, of being used. Ramsay will die because he is a monster, because his knives tore into her skin, and he carved out what little innocence she had left. 

He needs to die so that the Starks can reclaim Winterfell uncontested. It’s their home by birthright and conquest. No one will dispute their ownership.

She watches him for a long time before he regains consciousness. It’s good to see him bleed, to know he is human, like her, like Theon. 

“Sansa,” he says. “Hello, Sansa.”

She wondered sometimes. If Ramsay had not been the monster he is. If he had been another man. Would she have learned to love him? Would she have still hated him because he took her home and his father killed her brother? 

Ramsay, however, is a monster. And she stopped believing in tales and scenarios where her life is not an abject nightmare a long time ago. 

“Is this where I’ll be staying now?” he asks. 

He knows her. She hates that Ramsay knows her in ways that no one else will ever do. She hates that he can read her with a look. She hates that she had to marry him in her home. 

“No, our time together is about to come to an end,” he says as if he had been a good husband to her. As if he had not defiled her in any way he could for months. 

“That’s all right.” He says, “You can’t kill me. I’m part of you now.”

No. She may be all wrong, but he will never be part of her. 

“Your words will disappear. Your House will disappear. Your name will disappear. All memory of you will disappear, This I can promise you, Ramsay Snow.”

The hounds’ cages have been opened. They are smelling him, one of them is already circling him. 

“My hounds will never harm me.”

“You haven’t fed them in seven days. You said it yourself to my brother.”

“They’re loyal beasts.”

“They were. Now they’re starving.”

She watches the scene. Her father tells them that the person who passed the sentence should wield the sword. He also tells her to look the person in the eye. If they cannot, perhaps the person doesn’t deserve to die. 

She can’t tear her eyes off the scene. He screams as his hounds tear him apart. She turns her back and walks away. The snow is falling, and when his screams stops she can’t help the smile on her lips. 

If that means she is a monster, she will live with that. She will breathe easier now that Ramsay is dead. She is free. She won’t be anyone’s possession ever again. Baelish thinks it’s a beginning for them. 

He doesn’t know. He can’t suspect that it’s just the beginning of his end. 

Yet, when she turns a corner, she stops and rests her forehead against the wall for a moment. 

What has she become? 

She needs to see Jon. She needs to feel human again. 

She comes to him later that night. He is in his old room, which hasn’t changed much. Rickon is still asleep, his breathing even, and the Maester told him he would warn them when he woke up. 

She comes to him clad in her dark cloak, her hair loose on her shoulders.. She is shivering and looks like a vision, all red, white, and black. 

He is applying a salve on his bruised knuckles and wrapping them in gauze when she sits down on the chair next to him.

“Let me help you,” she says.

She is beautiful. She is his sister . And he wishes it stopped him from feeling what he feels for her. It doesn’t. There is no absolution for his sin, but he doesn’t want to drag her down with him. 

Yet, he nods, and he lets her wrap his hand with the gauze. She does a good job with it. 

“You didn’t kill him,” she says. 

He swallows and says, “No, I didn’t.”

“Thank you.” she says, “Does it make me a monster?”

“You said you -”

“I know what I said.” She takes his other hand in hers and starts wrapping the gauze around his knuckles. 

“How did he die?”

“His hounds.”

If he didn’t feel so exhausted and hollowed out by that day, he would laugh and tell her that he got exactly what he deserved, but he is not sure what she wants to hear. 

“Do you feel better?” he asks. 

“Yes. He is dead. He can’t hurt anyone ever again. But I don’t like the person I was today.”

“You saved us and won the battle.”

“One would think the Lannisters raised me. And they did."

“You were their hostage.”

“Aye. But still.”

“You told me they were coming. I knew they were coming. I was losing the battle.”

“Promise me that if I become like that again, you will tell me. They broke me. They don’t get to make me one of them.”

“You are not.”

“But you can barely look at me.”

“It’s not - we kissed Sansa.”

“And?”

“It’s wrong.”

Her lips cover his so suddenly and quickly that he blinks in confusion for a moment. She kisses him, all fire and desperation, and he kisses her back. He feels her fingers sneaking up to his crotch, under his breeches, around his cock. 

“Does it feel wrong?” she asks when they break the kiss. Her fingers are wrapped in a fist around his cock and are moving up and down his length. 

“Sansa—” he says. It’s a warning, a plea. They cannot do this, not tonight. She is coming undone at the seams; he can see that, and he feels raw after the battle.  

“We both feel something,” she says. She places a soft kiss on his jaw and another on the corner of his lips. 

“It doesn’t matter what I feel.”

He is hard in her hand, and she knows exactly how to move it to make his breath quicken and almost make him lose his head. 

“It seems to me that what you are feeling matters,” she says. 

He gently grabs her wrist and whispers, “Stop it.”

She retreats her hand immediately. Her eyes are big, and her cheeks are flushed. 

“Not like this,” he says. Not to banish her demons and ghosts, not to feel less raw and hollowed out. They deserve better. 

If what they have is a sin, so be it. He will be in hell. She deserves better than that. 

Her touch is chaste when she finishes wrapping his other hand and keeps it in hers for a moment. 

“Jon Snow, saving Wildings, the North and his sister from herself.”

“Talk to me. We said that we would be there for each other. I am here.”

 “I know we are not in the camp any more. But can I sleep here tonight? I can’t be alone.”

“Aye.”

“People will talk.”

“It’s not people I’m worried about.”

“You’re worried about me. Do you think I will come to my senses and see how wrong this is?”

He doesn’t reply. She raises his hand and kisses his bandaged knuckles. One by one. It’s a chaste gesture. She looks at him and says, “It won’t happen.”

He believes her. He wants to believe her so badly. 

“And I’m not going anywhere.”

She smiles. She lets go of his hand and takes a vial from the pocket of her dress. 

“I bought that in Mole’s Town. It’s poison. The woman who sold it to me said it was quick and effective. I was going to drink it if the battle was lost.”

“We didn’t lose.”

“No. And I don’t need it any more. I’m free. You set me free.”

“You did it yourself.”

“No. I’ve ensnared myself to Baelish. But we have time.”

“He won’t have you.”

“He can’t. I’m yours.” she simply says. It makes his heart burst in his chest. He makes him smile. He feels close to tears as well. 

“Aye. Let’s get some sleep, Lady Stark.”

“I’m not a monster,” she says. 

“No, you are not.”

“And you really believe it,” she says. 

“Yes.”

He doesn’t tell her she is his. He envelopes her in his aching arms, and her head rests on his chest.

“I love your heartbeat,” she says. 

“Sleep well, Sansa. I’m here. No one is going to harm you, I promise.”

She looks at him and smiles a little. “One day I might believe it.”

“I will make you believe it.”

She nods against his chest. 

He thought he would have trouble falling asleep. He feels so wired and wrung out. Instead, sleep claims him right away. Seconds later, Sansa, in his arms, falls asleep. 

She joins Jon on the rampage. It’s a cold day, and it’s snowing. She sees the Red Woman going away, but she doesn’t ask what happened. 

It’s been three days since the battle. They have not talked about what happened in Jon’s room the first night. She has slept in his bed for the past three nights. 

It started to keep the nightmares away in the tent they shared. It’s become something more now. 

“I’m having the Lord’s chamber prepared for you,” he says. 

“Mother and Father’s room? You should take it.”

“I’m not a Stark,” he says.

“You are to me,” she says. And she knows it’s not the first time she told him Whatever they have between them, Jon is a Stark. Rickon, Jon and her are the Starks of Winterfell. 

“You are the Lady of Winterfell. And until Rickon comes of age, we are his regents,” he says. 

“He doesn’t want to be Lord of Winterfell or anything. He wants his family together,” she says. She hates to admit that it’s convenient that her brother told her he would waive his rights to Winterfell when the Lords come. 

She has one move to keep themselves safe from Baelish. It’s risky, and Rickon’s presence might have jeopardized her plan. 

“When did he tell you?” 

“Just this morning. He needs time. He is not fit to be the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.”

“Was it your idea?”

“No. He came to me and told me. Do you genuinely think I would take my brother’s rights away?”

“No. But you deserve to be the Lady of Winterfell. We’re standing here because of you. The battle was lost until the Knights of the Vale rode in. They came because of you. So, what will Lord Baelish ask in return?”

“Eventually my hand in marriage. He can’t right now. They all need to make sure I’m not carrying Ramsay’s child. And we will have time.”

“Do you trust him to wait for you?”

“Only a fool would trust Littlefinger.” She looks at him. “We needed his men. I’m sorry you had to live through that battle, but I’m not sorry I wrote to him.”

“We have so many enemies now,” he says. 

“I’m not your enemy. I will never be,” she replies. 

“I know. I’m not happy with him being here, but I trust you.”

“And I trust you,” she says. 

And I love you. And you are honourable and will protect me even from myself she thinks. 

He kisses her forehead, and it’s a chaste kiss, brief. The kind of kiss a brother would give to his sister. Because they’re on the ramparts of Winterfell, and everyone could see them. He is protecting her, even now. 

“Jon,”

He turns and looks at her. 

“A raven came from the Citadel. A white raven. Winter is here.”

Jon smiles and looks up at the sky. She sees tears glistening in his eyes. He looks at her and says, “Well, father always promised, didn’t he?”

He leaves her with these words. Yes, father promised. 

Father promised her another match, when she was a stupid child in King’s Landing, with someone brave, gentle and strong. 

She found him. And she doesn’t care that they share blood. 

She is not letting him go. 

She loves the Godswood. She doesn’t pray. She wouldn’t know how to, after all she has seen. She is thankful, however. And she supposes that the Gods if they exist, will hear her thoughts. They will know she is thankful. 

Baelish finds her there. She wasn’t praying exactly. She was thinking. She expected a visit from Baelish and she needs to know what he wants. She needs to make her move. 

“Forgive me, my lady. If you’re at prayer -” 

“I’m done with all that.” It’s a lie. She thanked the Old Gods because Rickon was alive, Jon was there with her, and she was safe. Baelish doesn’t need to know that. 

“I came here every day when I was a girl. I prayed to be somewhere else. Back then, I only thought of what I wanted, never about what I had.”

It’s the truth. But it’s one Baelish knows about her. He has known her for a long time, after all. It’s a truth that doesn’t put her in jeopardy.

She stands up and walks toward the man, saying, “I was a stupid girl!”

That, too, is the truth. One that Littlefinger will love. He likes to think of himself as her mentor, her teacher. He is, in part.

“You were a child.”

“What do you want?” she asks. 

“I thought you knew what I wanted.”

“I was wrong,” she says. No, she wasn’t. Not completely. The truth is that Baelish made a mistake with the Boltons, and she will use it until it destroys him. 

“No, you weren’t,” he says. Of course, he knows. He taught her how to play this part of the game, after all. 

“Every time I’m faced with a decision, I close my eyes, and I see the same pictures. Whenever I consider an action, I ask myself: will this action help to make this picture a reality? Pull it out of my mind and into the world?”

He has gotten closer to her as he talks. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t say a word. 

“And I only act if the answer is yes.” he continues. “A picture of me on the Iron Throne and you by my side.”

He leans into her to kiss him, but this time, Sansa is prepared. She gently pushes him away. She is the abused widow of Ramsay Bolton. Even Littlefinger will show restraint now. 

“It’s a pretty picture,” she says. It turns her stomach. But for the first time, Baelish is giving her something she can use—a key to his mind and his thoughts. 

He is probably five or six steps ahead of her on many fronts, but she has been planning independently. 

She needs him to talk. To confirm what she knows. 

“News of the Battle will spread quickly through the Seven Kingdoms. I’ve declared for House Stark for all to hear.”

She doesn’t look at him, and almost smiles when she says, “You declared for other houses before, Lord Baelish. It’s never stopped you from serving yourself.”

“The past is gone for good,” he says. 

He is wrong, but she doesn’t correct him. They are playing the game now, and she will let him believe what he wants to believe. 

“You can sit here mourning its departure, or you can prepare for the future,” he says.

Here. The information she needs. 

“You, my love, are the future of House Stark. Who should the North rally behind? A trueborn daughter of Ned and Catelyn Stark born here at Winterfell or a motherless bastard born in the South?”

“What of my brother Rickon?” she asks. 

“He is terribly young and unfit to rule. I told you, my love, you are the future of House Stark. Not the young Rickon or your half-brother.”

She knew he would say that. And she knows exactly what to do now. 

They are in her solar when a soldier knocks on the door. They are working. The Boltons depleted Winterfell’s resources. They have gold, but there is so much to do. Jon is overseeing the rebuilding of the castle and the training of men. Sansa is working on the ledgers trying to come up with ways to have more food now that Winter is here. 

“Lady Brienne is back, my Lady, my Lord,” the soldier says, hesitates, and then adds, “She is not alone.”

She looks at Jon. They move as one and leave the room, walking down the hallway and toward the Courtyard. She noticed that Jon and her don’t really need words to communicate when it’s about their duty to Winterfell. He is by her side, his bruised hands covered by the gloves he is wearing, his cloak billowing behind him. They are the Lord and Lady of Winterfell. 

And if her plans work, he will be more. 

Brienne is in the Courtyard with Pod and another man. The last time she saw him, she was a child. He is grayer than she remembers, but he stands tall, looking around with his hand on the hilt of his sword. 

“My Lady, Lord Snow,” Brienne says. “I’m relieved to see you home.”

“Thank you, Lady Brienne,” she says. 

She is happy the woman is back. Although she didn’t truly expect the Tullys' forces to join them, she is happy her uncle is there. 

“Uncle Brynden,” she says softly.

“You look like your mother, Sansa,” the man says, his voice thick with emotion. 

She swallows. She had heard those words many times over the years since she left the North. But they never came from someone who truly loved her mother. She misses her. She thinks she would be horrified with the woman she has become, for the man she loves, for her lack of honour, but she loves her anyway. 

She will never stop being Catelyn Tully’s daughter, regardless of the choices she makes to survive. 

The hug with her uncle is tight, and it dislodges something in her heart. She is getting back another piece of her family: Wolves and Trouts, Starks and Tullys. She was so alone for so long, and now she is home, and she has her family with her. 

“Lady Brienne told me about Baelish. Is he here?” The Blackfish whispers in her ear.

She nods. “We need to talk.”

Having the Blackfish here when the Lords come will help her if she can convince him that it’s the only way to keep her family safe and to give him back Riverrun eventually. 

“Thank you for coming,” she says, stepping back from the man. “Do you know my brother Jon Snow?”

“I don’t.” He says. His voice is stern, and she prays that the man will not hold a grudge against Jon for her mother’s sake. 

“Heard great things about you since we came North.” the man says. 

Jon looks at her for a moment. He never does well with praise. She is ready to intervene, to defuse the situation, but her uncle shakes his hand and tells him, “Thank you for protecting my niece.”

Jon doesn’t reply to those words. She wants to roll her eyes, but she keeps her face blank. People are watching them. 

“You can stay here as long as you want, uncle. We will help you take back your home when the time is right.”

The man looks at her. “When the time is right?” he asks. 

“Come, uncle. We have much to discuss.” 

The Blackfish cocks an eyebrow at her words. What did Brienne tell him? Did she expect to find a cowering girl? A wilting flower?

She is a wolf. And she is on the prowl. 

“No,” Jon says. 

They are in her solar. Brienne and Pod are outside. There are no outsiders listening in. She knows Baelish has eyes and ears everywhere in the castle; she expects Varys, wherever he is, to have his own little birds, and there are probably other people from Northern Houses checking on them before the other Lords arrive. 

Of course, Jon would say no. She knew he would. 

“If anyone should rule the North, it is you. You are the Ned Stark’s eldest living child!” he says. 

It’s true. She won the war. She killed Ramsay. She learned the hard way that the truth is not what does or undoes kings and queens. 

“I can’t,” she says. 

“Because of Littlefinger?” her uncle asks. 

“Because I was married to a Lannister and a Bolton. Because after the wars, they will never trust a woman to be their Queen,” she explains. 

It’s unfair. But it is what it is. Lady Mormont, one of their staunchest allies, told her plainly when they talked. 

“It’s not fair, my lady, but we need to protect the North right now.” the child said. 

Her uncle, however, is not wrong. She is doing that to protect Jon and herself from Baelish. She can buy time. She feels she’s been running out of time since she sent her raven to the man, but she can beat him. She knows she can. 

“I won’t usurp you!” Jon says. 

“You are not usurping anyone. You are a Stark—Robb’s brother, Ned Stark’s son. This is how we protect the North and ourselves!” She snaps at the last words. 

“You are doing it again,” he says, shaking his head.  

The Blackfish is looking at them, a frown marring his brow. 

“No. I am trying to protect this family and the North.”

“What would your mother say?” Jon asks. 

She looks at her uncle. He surprised her. She thought he would be more hostile toward her father’s son, but he hasn’t said a word so far. He has been gruff to Jon, but respectful. 

“She would be furious.” the Blackfish says.

She sighs. “Mother and Father are gone. There is just us now. Robb lost the North. We got it back. Winter is here, Cersei still wants my head, and the Others are coming. We owe it to the North to lead them, and there is only you, Jon.”

“Being King won’t stop Littlefinger.” he says. 

“No, But it gives you control over the Vale. He has declared  for House Stark.”

“And it gives you control over the Riverlands once we oust the Freys from Riverrun.” the Blackfish adds, “We will fight for the living when the time comes, Snow.”

“Would you bend the knee to a bastard?” he asks the Blackfish. 

The Blackfish doesn’t answer for a moment, then he says, “The alternative would be bending the knee to a Lannister. It’s never going to happen. Your father broke my niece’s heart, but he raised good children.”

“Mother was wrong about Jon,” she says. 

“Sansa,” both Jon and her uncle say at the same time. 

“It was never your fault. I have met true bastards. You are nothing like them,” she says. She thinks her voice is even, and she is careful not to show any of her feelings in front of her uncle. 

Jon looks at her. His face is so open. There is so much honesty in his eyes. She will be proud to call him her King. The one she chose. The one she loves. 

“I’m not sitting here dwindling my thumbs, niece. How do we stop Baelish?”

“We get control of the Knights of the Vale. He killed aunt Lysa.” she says, “I lied to protect him because I was alone, there was no one I could trust.”

The Blackfish nods. “Lysa was always in love with him. I should have done more for her..”

She looks at him. She owes it to him to look at him while he mourns his niece. Her aunt was unstable; she tried to kill her, but she understands her uncle’s grief. Baelish will pay for that too. 

“He is dangerous.” she says, “we must move carefully.”

“We will. He will not see us coming.”

She nods, but she thinks Baelish will have strategies in place as soon as he hears that her uncle is there. Later, she will tell Jon that she thinks she can buy them six months, perhaps less. She will tell him that she will play the game with the man, pretending, lying, and breaking every oath if it means they will be safe. 

“Another thing,” the Blackfish says. “Cersei Lannister.”

“She will make her move,” she says. There is nothing she can do about it. She can try and be ready, but the woman’s wrath will come one way or another. She will not harm Jon, she cannot afford to fight a war in the North, in Winter. But she doesn’t think she is safe from Cersei Lannister.  

“She will not harm you,” Jon says. 

She smiles. She knows he means it. He promised her she would believe him one day when he told her he would protect her. She wants to. 

“She won’t wage a war against you, not now.” The Blackfish says. 

“No, she can’t. It won’t stop her; nothing ever does,” she says. 

 The Lords will come soon. They need to undo the damages the Iron Born and the Boltons did to Winterfell and the North. They need the Lords to know that the Starks will guide them through Winter as they have done for millennia. 

Winter has come, and the wolves need to be together. Her father was right. She understands it now. She feels it in her blood, in her bones. The pack will survive. Rickon, Jon and her. Bran and Arya, wherever they are. They will endure. 

“You can’t expect the Knights of the Vale to fight with Wildings invaders,” Lord Royce says. 

“We didn’t invade, we were invited!” Tormund replies.

“Not by me.” Lord Royce replies, sitting down. 

He stands up. He is in the place where his father used to sit. He feels like someone will kick him out, but he needs to talk. “The freefolks, the northerners, and the Knights of the Vale fought bravely, fought together, and we won. My father used to say we find our true friends on the battlefield.” 

“The Boltons are defeated. The war is over. Winter has come. If the maesters are right it will be the coldest one in a thousand years. We should ride home and wait out the coming storms.” Lord Cerwin says. 

He wishes it were that simple. He wishes nothing more than to have Winterfell for Sansa, Rickon and himself and live through the Winter with them. 

“My Lord,” Rickon says,, getting up from his chair. His brother looks around, nervously stealing glances at Sansa and him. “We all wish things were that simple. We know that the real enemy is coming. That is why I chose to let my brother Jon lead us through the war as the head of Winterfell. Winter is here, and the Staks will protect the North as they have done for thousands of years!”

Rickon sits down, the Lords knew already. Rickon made his will very clear. His brother will always have a home in Winterfell. No one objects to Ned Stark’s son giving up his seat and his legacy to his bastard brother. The North has lost too much, shed too much blood, and grieved for too many people to care.

“My brother is right. I thank him for his trust, and I must warn you all: the war is not over,” he says. “And I promise you, the true enemy won’t wait out the storm. He brings the storm.”

Some of the Lords already know what he is talking about: the Houses that pledged for the Starks have all been informed about the Others. He feels infinitely less alone now. He doesn’t know how they will defeat the Night King, but he knows that his people, northerners and free folk, will be by his side when the time comes. 

He sees Litterfinger lurking in a corner, the Blackfish is sitting next to Lord Royce, Brienne is standing nearby, next to Ser Davos. Rickon is sitting next to Sansa at his table. He can’t see their hands, and he knows she must be holding her brother’s hand under the table. Rickon is a strong boy; he will be a great Lord one day, but for now, he is still shaken and scared. 

Sansa looks magnificent. She wants him to be King, and he will be if it protects her and their home. 

He doesn’t know how these men will accept him as their King, but he will never lie to them. If it comes down to it, he will die for the North and for the woman he loves. So he holds Lord Cerwyn's gaze and waits for the people to discuss it and realize what he is talking about. 

He is not surprised when Lyanna Mormont, the child who was the first to pledge her men and her sword to the Starks, stands up. Sansa told him it would happen. Lady Mormont may be a child, but she is the Lady of one of the oldest Houses in the North. Her mother died for Robb, and only a fool would try to belittle her. 

“Your son was butchered at the Red Wedding, Lord Manderley, but you refused the call. You swore allegiance to House Stark, Lord Glover, but in their hour of greatest need, you refused the call. And you, Lord Cerwyn, your father was skinned alive by Ramsay Bolton. Still, you refused the call. But House Mormont remembers. The North remembers. We know no King but the King in the North, whose name is Stark. I don’t care if he’s a bastard. Ned Starks blood runs through his veins. He’s my King. From this day until his last day!”

Sansa is smiling. The people are in rapt silence. Lady Mormont commands the room and she spoke her mind. Sansa told him it would happen, still - he is breathless. He is Winterfell's bastard. He is the boy who ran to the Wall to shed his name and be something more. He is the crow who loved a Wilding and learned their ways. He is the traitor they knifed and let bleed out in the snow. 

He is a brother. He was a son. He had never met his mother, and his father had not had the chance to tell him about her. He is bloody, unhealed scars in his chest,  and jagged pieces inside himself that don’t quite fit together unless he is with his sister. 

She believes in him. 

He loves her so much that he would tear the world asunder for her. 

Lord Manderley, whom he remembers from when he was a child during one of his visits, gets up from his seat. “Lady Mormont speaks harshly,” he says, “and truly. My son died for Robb Stark, the Young Wolf. I didn’t think we’d find another King in my lifetime. I didn’t commit my men to your cause, because I didn’t want more Manderleys dying for nothing. But I was wrong. Jon Snow avenged the Red Wedding. He is the White Wolf!” 

Lord Manderley unsheats his sword and bends the knee, saying, “The King in the North!”

He can’t tear his eyes away from the scene. And he balls his hands into fists when Lord Glover stands up.

“I did not fight beside you on the field, and I will regret it until my dying day. A man can only admit when he was wrong and ask forgiveness.”

He swallows. His words on that day still burn, but they need the North to be united against the Others. His pride is not important. 

“There is nothing to forgive, my Lord.”

“There will be more fights to come. House Glover will stand behind House Stark as we have for a thousand years. And I will stand behind Jon Snow.” 

Lord Glover bends the knee, shouts of: The King in the North rippling in the room. The other Lords raise their swords, repeating those words. 

The King in the North. 

He raises - he doesn’t even remember when he sat down again, and looks at Sansa. She is smiling at him, and although she is wearing a careful mask, he can see pride sparkling in her eyes. She doesn’t want the throne, he realizes. She didn’t lie to him. She chose him to ber her King. 

He takes a breath, his heart hammering in his chest. He will not disappoint Sansa. He will lead the North through Winter, defeat the Others and all their enemies, and make her proud of him. 

These people don’t know that he craves his sister’s touch even now. They would not choose him if they knew. And yet, his love for Sansa has never been stronger. 

There is a gallery that connects the chambers in the family wing of Winterfell. She remembers her siblings all playing in the dark space during rainy days when they couldn’t play outside. There are torches on the walls now. She knows Roose Bolton and Ramsay must have been aware of them, but the access was blocked in the room where she was kept. 

She has been using the gallery for days to go to Jon. She bars her door  she can’t risk anyone knowing, not even Brienne. They would not understand. Or they would - because even if there have been only two kisses between them, she craves him. 

It’s madness. She thinks. She is going to him when their castle is filled with guests. Friends and foes. He is her King. They named him King because she played her hand. She saw Littlefinger’s face, she knows how disappointed he is, how unhappy he is with the Lords’ choice. 

Unlike him, she has known since the beginning the Lords would never pick her. She has watched Cersei Lannister twist herself into the hateful woman she has known because she was never chosen because of her gender. 

She will not turn into her. 

Besides, she saw who really holds the power, and it’s not always Kings or Queens. 

Jon will be a good King. Unlike those she met, he has a good heart and honour, and he cares for the people. The Freefolk trust him blindly, and the northern men who fought with him would do it again. She knows he will be adored and safe. 

She will make sure he is safe. 

She needs her mind to stop spinning. It will drive her mad if she thinks about the future, about what the Lords will expect from them, and how now that there is no war, she is a widow, and he is a King, things might change. 

She runs into the gallery, feeling out of breath. Her heart is a wild animal in her chest, her hands shaking. She - she should go back to her chambers. She should put an end to everything before life does it for her. She should protect herself because, in her experience, no one will do it for her. 

She can’t. 

She softly knocks on the door. He opens it. 

It’s already too late. 

She flees into his arms like the day they reunited in Castle Black. Does he feel it too? Is he scared that they will tear them apart? Does he feel the need to stake his claim on her like she does on him?

His arms are wrapped around her waist, her face is buried in the crook of his neck, her arms are around his shoulders. He smells like home and saop and fire. Her heart aches for him. 

I can’t lose you, she thinks, closing her eyes when he kisses the crown of her head. They don’t move. The only noises in the room is the fire cracking in the hearth, outside the room some people are still in the keep, drinking, elsewhere in the castle people are sleeping. None of them matter. 

“I can feel your heart beating -” he says, his breath hot against her temple, his lips pressing a kiss there. 

“Don’t send me away,” she says. 

She pleaded a king on her knees once. Jon is as different from Joffrey as anyone can be. Nonetheless, she is begging him. 

“I don’t know if I can -” he says. 

I want you. She wants to say, but she is not wired that way. Ladies are not wanton. 

I love you. The words are in her throat, on her tongue. She wants to say them because they are the truth, and she has been a liar for so long. 

He seeks her lips. It’s tentative, and she feels butterflies in her stomach, and what she feels for him bursts through her, and it almost hurts. 

She kisses him back, and her hands shake as she trails her fingers up and down his back. She is his. She has never felt anything like that in her life. When she was younger,, she thought love was like depicted in the tales. 

It’s not. 

It fills her. It’s scary. It makes her heart quiver. It takes her breath away. It’s consuming her. It’s a balm for her cracked soul. It’s the quiet of nights spent in front of the fire and a cot in a tent while their bodies huddle closer to each other for warmth. It’s the way he banished her nightmares and beat the monster who hurt her bloody. 

It’s his lips on hers, the tip of his tongue lick along the seams of her lips and her granting him access.

They walk backwards, his bed is behind her, and she is afraid, but she is more scared at the idea of losing him - to the North, to their duties, to life. 

“Sansa -” he breathes against her lips. “Are you sure?” 

She nods. She is his. That cannot change. It will never change. She doesn’t care about right or wrong. She doesn’t care about the gods. She only cares about him. 

His lips are soft, he tastes like wine, and his hands are cupping her face while he kisses her. 

“You are shaking,”  he says when they break their kiss. 

She smiles. It’s true. She is shaking. She has never felt anything remotely like that. She is choosing him. 

He is choosing her. 

She is wearing a cloak above her nightgown, and she can’t help parting her lips when his fingers are on the clasp. He helps her out of the cloak. His eyes are dark, but his look is so kind and soft that it makes her heart ache. 

He is her Jon. Although he was a stranger when they reunited at the Wall, he was there for her, with her. 

His fingers trace her collarbone, and she tilts her head to the side. He looks so young and open, and she loves him so much that it almost brings her to tears. She needs to touch him, to feel his skin under her fingertips. 

She trails her hand up and cups the back of his neck. His skin is so warm, so soft. She seeks his lips and their bodies slid closer to each other. His hands are in her hair, his fingers carding through it, and she sighs in his arms, 

She knows what happens next. She is not afraid. She could never be afraid of Jon. He isn’t pushing her down to the bed. He is barely touching her body. He is kissing her as if they had all the time in the world. 

It feels like it’s true. 

“Sansa,” he whispers against her face. It sounds like a prayer, sending shivers down her spine. 

Her hair is loose on her shoulders. He looks at her with a small smile on his lips. 

She smiles as well. The fear she had while walking down to his room is fading. No one can part them. She has never believed in anything as strongly as she believes in them. 

“I will never hurt you,” he says. 

She nods. He kisses her again, and she feels hear pooling in her belly, the space between them is hot, and she wants. 

His hands are on her waist again, and he gently lowers her down to his bed. There is a moment where she feels like she wants to run. It’s a mere heartbeat lost in an ocean of desire, but he notices it. He is next to her on the bed, and there is concern on his face. 

She kisses it away. She can’t speak her wants. She can’t tell him how much she loves him. She can show him that she is not afraid. She can show him that she is his. And he is hers. 

She smiles against his lips when she feels him relaxing. That moment doesn’t belong to the ghosts of her past, to the pain and the blood. It belongs to them. 

It’s a sin. If she still believed in gods, she would be afraid. What she feels and what she sees in his eyes cannot be wrong. 

Their touches linger, and somehow, his jerkin comes off, his tunic is unbuttoned, and she feels his fingers help her out of her nightgown. 

“I have scars,” she says. 

“Me too,” he whispers. “We are alive, my love.”

My love. 

Her breath catches in her throat. His voice was low as he said those words, and they made her eyes fill with tears. 

“Sansa -”  he says. His brow is furrowed. 

“You said, my love,” she says. Her voice is thick with emotion. She has forgotten about her scars, the ugly marks on her skin, she only cares about the look in his eyes, the curve of his lips, his weight he supports on his elbow on her. 

“I mean it.” he rasps. 

She blinks back her tears. He will taste them on her lips when he kisses her again. And he does. Soft brushes of his lips against hers. She is aware that, at some point, she has spread her legs and should feel wanton, but she doesn’t. She craves his touch now. She craves to touch his skin. 

He seems to read her mind because he sits on the bed and takes off his tunic with a swift movement. 

She sees the scars on his chest. They look like they haven’t healed. 

“Do they hurt?” she asks. 

He shakes his head. “No, I can barely feel them any more.”

“Can - can I touch them?” she asks. 

He nods. He takes her hand in his and guides it to his chest. 

“They are all dead, aren’t they?” she asks. 

“Aye,” he says. 

“Good.” 

He moves, and he is above her, scattering kisses on her face, trailing down on her neck and stopping on her breasts. There is a nasty scar under one her breasts. He traces it with the pad of his fingers, but she stops thinking about it altogether when his mouth covers her nipple. 

The jolts of pleasure she feels take her by surprise. She arches her back, letting out a moan when he suckles on her nipple while his other hand is cupping her other breast, rolling her other nipple between his fingers. She feels the throbbing between her legs again. It’s sweet, hot, wet. 

And she can feel his arousal against her stomach. 

He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. He leaves her breast to focus his attention on the other, licking a stripe between her breasts,

“You are beautiful,” he says, his voice thick with arousal now. 

“So are you,” she says, and seeks his skin as well, kissing his shoulders, and in chest, making him shiver, and his hips rocking  against hers. And it’s a delicious. friction. 

They need more. Jon, however, is kissing her belly now. He tracks the scars he finds with his fingertips, and it’s almost as if he is eliminating them. 

His mouth is now close to her pelvis. He looks at her, “Let me make you feel good -”

She knows it can feel good. She remembers Myranda peaking with her tongue lapping at her cunt. 

“Not now,” she says. “Next time.”

He looks at her and nods, “Of course, Sansa. You are in control here.”

She nods. She will tell about what happened with Myranda one day, but not that night. 

Jon doesn’t seem angry. His fingers trail down her tummy. 

He doesn’t say a word. He’s asking for permission to touch her. And she wants to feel his fingers inside herself. 

She only knew pain, and it’s her past. 

His fingers trail down. She arches her back when he teases her folds. His touch is gentle, and she feels the liquid fire in her belly leaking down her legs, and she genuinely doesn’t know what he will do now. 

And then he pushes a finger inside of her, and she lets out a sound, something between a sigh and a moan. 

“You are so wet -” he says. 

“And is it a good thing?” she asks. 

“Aye, my love. It’s a very good thing.” 

She kisses him again while his fingers are sliding in and out of her, and she lets out a moan when he adds another. She feels filled. She feels like it was always supposed to happen. She feels her muscles taut and a pressure building on her belly, a pleasure that fills every crack in herself. Jon’s thumbs press on the bundle of nerves on her sex, and Sansa cries out his name, over and over, when the pressure explodes, and she is shivering.

Was that what Shae and Margaery talked about? 

She can feel his arousal against her belly now. He is still wearing his breeches. 

“Make me yours,” she says. And she can’t believe she is saying those words. She is still shivering with the pleasure she felt. She wants to be joined to Jon. 

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Very much so.” 

She doesn’t tell him she wants to feel him deep inside herself. She doesn’t want to know where she ends and he begins. 

He seems to read it on her face anyway. His breeches come off, and she looks at him, 

“I won’t hurt you,” he says.

“I’m not a maiden,” she replies matter-of-factly. 

“It may be so. But you are still innocent.”

She is hardly innocent either, Or perhaps she is - what does she know of pleasure? Of lovemaking?

He kisses her again and moves them onto the bed so that she is on top of him.

“Jon -” she says, confusion on her face, 

“Trust me-” he says.

And she does. Ramsay always rutted between her legs when she was on her back or pounded her from behind. He never let her be on top. The residual fears she has been feeling deep down disappear. 

She kisses him, their tongues languidly dancing around each other, and she feels his hands on her hips guiding her toward his cock. She isn’t worried, but her heart is beating fast in her chest. 

It’s really happening. There will be no turning back. She will be by Jon’s side. She will play the good sister, the Lady of Winterfell. She will be his lover. She will be his. 

Neither of them says a word as he guides her cunt to his cock. She lowers herself on his length, feeling stretched, filled up. His hands are on her hips, and she is balancing herself on his chest. 

She moves, and it’s nothing like the times with Ramsay. There is no pain. He is filling her whole, and they both still for a moment before she moves. They move together, their hips snapping, his hand on her naked back. There are scars all over it, and he is tracing them with his fingers. 

He moves a hand down between them, finds the bundle of nerves in her sex and circles it with his thumb, and she feels her inner walls clamping down on him. Another wave of pleasure is starting from the spine, Jon is letting it mount, until she cannot control the noises she make, or her movements. 

He presses his thumb on her bundles of nerves, and white hot pleasure makes her toes curl, but she keeps moving, she feels her walls fluttering around Jon’s cock, and she hears the sounds he is making. 

She kisses him when his movements grow frantic, and a moment later, she feels him spill inside of her. 

They’re both panting when she is in his arms. He kisses her temple and says, “Thank you, Sansa.”

“No - don’t. You showed me how it was supposed to be. You are Jon.”

They remain in silence for a while, Sansa letting air into her lungs, but she tilts her head to his side when he says, “I won’t let them separate us. Ever.”

“The Lords, our duties - they will ask things of us.”

“They will not get them. You said you are mine, Sansa. But I’m yours as well.”

“I was afraid while I was coming here. Afraid that they will take you away from me.”

“No one will. Ever.”

She believed him. 

“We should sleep. My King has a long day ahead of him tomorrow.”

“You really believe that I can do it?”

“There is no one I believe in more. You will be a great King.”

“And you, a great Lady of Winterfell and a princess.”

She laughs, “I don’t care about that..”

“But you are.. My princess. And My Queen, if I could.”

“I only want to be with you.”

“Lady Stark, the feeling is mutual.”

She is safe in the cocoon of his arms. 

They are together.

 And nothing else matters.

Chapter Text

Winterfell is bursting with activity. Sansa is working very hard, taking on his duties when they took the castle back. She is the Lady of Winterfell. She oversees the reconstruction of the library and the glass gardens and she is working to fill the larders and the granaries. He thinks she is magnificent. 

She is also there for Rickon. She spends time with him while their brother reacquaints himself with their home and mourns their dead, and his own: Shaggydog and the Freefolk woman who took care of him, Osha. 

When people call him “Your Grace”, he still thinks they must be japing. They are not. He doesn’t think he will ever get used to his new role.  They work hard because the North needs to be rebuilt if they want to stand any chance against The Others,  but they always break their fast with Rickon, Davos, the Blackfish, Brienne, and Pod. 

He doesn’t think the Blackfish likes him very much, but he loves Sansa, and he is doting on Rickon, so he doesn’t care. Ser Brynden Tully bent the knee and assured him that the Riverlands would follow the North. 

He bent the knee because he will never bend to a Lannister, and he can’t say he can blame him. 

Speaking of Lannisters, they are discussing Cersei this morning. They have had news from King’s Landing. There was an explosion, the Sept of Baelor went up in flames, and people say it was Wildfire. The Tyrells are gone, and Cersei crowned herself Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. 

“There will be a raven soon, I’m sure,” Sansa says. 

“The Sept of Baelor is gone -” Davos says with a note of authentic incredulity in his voice. 

“We should double your protection, my Lady, and Your Grace,” Brienne adds. 

Sansa nods distractedly. She is picking at her food. 

He wants to reach out and take her hand in his; he wants to tell her that Cersei will not harm her, that he will protect her, that he will wage war with the South and win, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything. 

They discuss Riverrun briefly. The Freefolk will not fight South, and their army needs more time before they can travel to the Riverlands and retake the Tullys’ holdfast. There is the matter of the Freys, who are controlling the Twins, and even the Blackfish agreed that they need more time and resources. 

He is doing a poor job of not looking at Sansa. He is aware,  but she looks worried and deep in thought, and he hates that he can’t do anything to ease her mind while they are in public. They are among people they trust, and yet they cannot know. No one can. 

It’s the price they have to pay for being together. He traded honour for love and he cannot regret it, even if he chafes under the secrecy. 

They would not understand. At best, they would force them to marry other people and be apart. Or they would kill them. 

“What are your plans today, my Lady?” Davos asks Sansa.

“We are bringing blankets and food to Wintertown,” she says. 

It’s Winter, and the Lady of Winterfell is expected to tend to the people. Sansa takes her duties very seriously. She told him a few nights before that she used to want to leave the North when she was a child, that she regrets not loving her home enough, and that she never wants to leave if she can help it. 

He doesn’t want her to leave either. The Lords will have to accept it. No one has come forward with marriage proposals to either of them, but it’s only a matter of time. 

He is Sansa’s. She is his. It won’t ever change. 

“That seems like an excellent idea, my Lady,” Davos says. 

“Thank you, my Lord Hand,” she replies. 

He would have chosen Sansa as his Hand, but she reminded him that she was his heir and the Lady of Winterfell. 

“Pick Davos or my uncle. I cannot be your Hand. There are not enough hours in a day as it is.”

“You would be an exceptional Hand,” he told her. 

She shook her head and smiled at his words, “Thank you, but I have to run our home and ready it for the war.”

He trusts Davos. He is a good man and he accepted being his Hand. He is good at his job, and the Freefolk and the northern Lords seem to respect him. 

“Will you hear petitions today, Your Grace?” She asks. 

He sighs, and he hears some chuckles around the table. It’s not that he doesn’t want to hear his people. He doesn’t have much patience for petty lords who seem to have already forgotten the North has been at war for years. 

“We should talk about your coronation,” Davos says. 

“Should we?” he asks. “I don’t really care about crowns.”

“Your brother wore a crown.” the Blackfish says. 

“And there is the matter of the Karstarks and the Umbers to settle,” Davos adds. 

He is aware. He looks at Sansa, who says nothing. They can’t seem to see eye to eye about the Karstarks and the Umbers. They have discussed the matter more than once. She thinks treachery should be punished, and they should award the loyalty of those who helped them. He thinks that it’s unfair to punish sons and daughters for their fathers’ sins. 

“You were treated as a traitor’s daughter. Do you wish the same fate on those children?” he asked. 

“Father didn’t betray anyone, and you are not Joffrey Baratheon! Should there be no consequences for betrayal?”

“Lord Karstarks and Lord Umber died on the field. They met their punishment. You wanted me to be King. This is the King I want to be, Sansa!”

“They betrayed Robb. They broke faith with our family,” she said. 

“And they died. Their heirs are children. We need to break the cycle, or it will never end. We need to be united against the Others.”

“Fine. You are my King. If you think this is the right choice, I will follow you..”

“Sansa -”

“I mean it, Jon. You are a fair King. I have too much vengeance in my heart.”

“I know your heart - that is not entirely true.”

“But you are right. They are children. Make them swear their oaths to House Stark, and  let’s hope it ends there.”

She still has doubts, and he knows that she fights with the darkness in her thoughts and heart. He saw her doing it before. He hopes she will be safe enough that her past will become just a memory and not a gaping wound still bleeding in her heart. 

“We will deal with them after the coronation,” he says. 

The people leave the room one after another. Sansa is the last one. She tells him they will see each other later in the evening. He is alone with Davos. 

“Send more men to protect Sansa while she is in Wintertown,” he says. 

Davos nods. “She is a remarkable woman,” he says after a moment. 

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t even look at him. “Yes,” he says. 

“And she is your sister .” 

Davos is too late. Months too late. He doesn’t know if he would have heard his warnings even before anything happened between them. 

“I am aware,” he says. 

“People noticed how close you were during the campaign against the Boltons. She had just fled from her terrible husband. They turned a blind eye to it out of guilt for what she went through.” 

He looks at the man. Davos is a good, wise man. He trusts him, but he doesn’t understand.  

“You are the King, now. And she is the Lady of Winterfell, almost a Queen in her own right. But she can never be your queen, Your Grace.”

What is he supposed to say to that? 

“I have explained to the Lords that you are both focusing on fortifying the North for the war to come. But sooner or later, you will both have to do your duty.”

“Our duty?” he asks. 

“To the North and to your people.” 

It’s never going to happen. 

“You are a good man, Your Grace. You were lost for a time. She was scared. It was only natural that you would become close. Things have changed now.”

He can’t lie to him. He can’t pretend to be outraged by his words. Davos would never utter them if he weren’t sure. 

“Who else knows?” he asks instead. 

“Lady Brienne. Tormund. Most of the Lords weren’t with us during the campaign. Lady Mormont is smart, but she is a child.”

“Thank you, Ser Davos. That will be enough.” he says, dismissing him. 

They have been careful. Or so he thought. It is a sin. There was a war that crippled Westeros because of the love between a brother and a sister. And he doesn’t care. He would marry her that night in the Godswood if he could. There will never be anyone else for him. 

He will talk to her that evening. They need to be more careful. He can’t lose her. 

Her uncle is very patient, training Rickon every day. Her brother wants her to be there for part of his training, and she indulges him because he asks so little of her. She remembers when he was a small child, and she held him for hours. He is almost as tall as her now, but he is still just a child who survived everything that befell on their family. 

Rickon is a little wild, and her uncle is having fun training him. Jon spars with Rickon in the evenings when they have time, and she cherishes those moments, but she loves seeing her family together. 

She will leave for Wintertown in a little while. She heard Brienne saying that she will have more men escorting her. She is grateful, even if she doesn’t fear her people. They are not in King’s Landing. Their people are not starving. They don’t hate their King, no one will drag her and push her to the ground. No one will hurt her. 

She hasn’t been to Wintertown in a long time, although she used to visit it with her mother when she was younger. She wonders whether the people there know how hard she is working to ensure their safety and that they don’t starve. 

Her uncle approaches her. He is a legendary warrior, he chose to follow Brienne North for her, and she is glad of his presence there. She knows he is slowly but surely gathering the Lords of the Vale by their side. Lord Royce is already a trusted ally, and she is sure they can turn the others against Littlefinger. 

“You don’t agree with our King about the Karstarks and the Umbers,” he says. 

Her first instinct is to lie. Jon, however, is not Joffrey. She doesn’t need to sing prettily. 

“It’s not that I don’t agree,” she says. 

“But you don’t want traitors in our midst.”

“Their fathers were traitors. They are just children. Jon is right.”

“You made him King. He is a good man,”

“He is the best of us,” she says. 

She worries about his honesty, about his honour. They make him the man she loves, but they are also the things that killed their father. 

“You love him,” he says. 

There is accusation in his voice but also understanding. She doesn’t think her uncle knows the truth, or his eyes wouldn’t be so kind. 

“He is my brother and my King.”

“He is,” he says. “At times, you remind me of your parents. But he is your blood.”

She knows. It’s the truth they cannot change. It’s the reason for the secrecy and why she leaves his bed before dawn, even if she leaves her heart with him every time. 

“One day, you will not have as many duties. That man acts his Hand, but it’s you our King listens to. It will change when he takes a wife.”

“Such is life,” she says. 

He studies her for a moment. She needs to remind herself that he is not an enemy. He is her kin. He wants what’s best for her. 

“And one day, you might want to have a husband, children.”

“No. I am never leaving Winterfell. This is my home.”

“I understand that. People will not. You know that, right?”

“I was married twice for my name. It can’t happen again.”

Her uncle looks at her. “We should have saved you.”

I had to save myself. She thinks. 

“We were at war.” She says. “But understand that I will never be sold again. Not for the North, not for anything.”

“I doubt our King would allow it,” he says. “They say bastards are -”

“Joffrey Baratheon was a bastard. Ramsay was a bastard in the true sense of the word. He is nothing like them. He would never hurt me.”

“Not willingly, no.” her uncle says. 

Does he know? What did he see? 

“You are too close, niece. I told you you remind me of your parents, and that is not a good thing. People will talk.”

She has many lies on the tip of her tongue. There are also truths she wishes she could tell him, even if he would hate them; how Jon was the only good thing that happened to her for a long time. How safe he made her feel when she believed she would never feel anything but fear and pain. How kind and good he is. How he loves her, and she can’t lose him. 

In the end, she cannot say anything. Which she knows is condemning in itself, but she cannot bring herself to lie, and she can’t tell the truth either. 

“He is my King,” she says after a moment. 

“We need to make choices, sometimes. I don’t need to tell you how unfair life is. You know better than most.”

Why is he not condemning her? Of all the people, the last one she expected to be accepting of the truth was her uncle. 

“Aye,” she says. 

She has no choices. She will shoulder his blame, his sins, and his honour. It doesn’t matter anyway; she is already tainted. 

“When it happens, I will be by your side, even if I don’t like what I see, and it would break your mother’s heart. We lost the right to judge you when we left you there.”

Her lips quiver. She blinks back tears. King’s Landing twisted her. Is that what her uncle is thinking? The corruption of the capital and the Lannisters made her into a monster. Perhaps he is right. 

Yet, it doesn’t feel wrong. She feels loved. They are not hurting anyone. If it’s a sin, it’s between them and their gods. 

Her uncle is trying out of love. He has warned her and said he will be by her side when she makes her choices. 

Will he be by her side when she chooses Jon against everything and everyone? 

People are coming back to Wintertown. It always happens during Winter, and with the Boltons gone, their people feel safer. Jon has been working on cleaning up the Northern roads from bandits. They want to make sure the North is as safe as it was while they were growing up. 

She thinks there are too many men escorting her. There were never so many guards escorting them when she was a child. Then again, it was summer, there was peace, and her father was beloved. 

There are too many children without parents. The people are not starving, but she thinks they are not ready for Winter. Not all of them. She sees old people who know the North, but she is worried about the younger people. 

They need to build houses in Wintertown. She needs to make it safe for her people. More will be coming, and they don’t know about the war against the Others. She is there to give the people blankets, hats, socks - but she knows there is more to do. 

She will have to talk to Jon about it. 

Brienne helps her. She doesn’t have a handmaiden yet. She is wary of letting everyone in her chambers, and she doesn’t trust anyone with Littlefinger around. It means she must do most things by herself, but she doesn’t mind. 

She is grateful for her sworn sword, however. She trusts her with her life, and she can only say this about two people. 

It’s a slow process, and the people gathering around her, telling her how happy they are that the Starks are back in Winterfell, make it even slower. She smiles at the words she hears. They sound heartfelt. She is not exactly comfortable in crowds, not after King’s Landing, but her people must see her, and they must know they will be cared for. 

Her father’s words echo in her mind. She was trained to run a big keep, but she heard him talk to Robb about his duties as Lord of Winterfell. Rickon waived his right to claim the seat, and it’s up to her until Bran returns home. 

She thinks about Arya. She always liked being among people, making friends with everyone. She hopes that wherever she is, she has found someone she can trust. 

There is a part of her that feels her siblings are close. It’s a humming in her gut that she has been feeling for weeks. The pack reuniting. The Starks together again in Winterfell. She knows Jon has been feeling it, too. They talked about it. They are both waiting for their siblings. 

They will not understand Jon and her. Arya will probably hate her, but she can take it if she is home with them. She is thinking about her sister and remembering a storm many years ago. Arya was never scared of anything, but the wind was howling, and the sky was dark. She told her she would protect her and climbed into her bed. They slept hugging each other, the furs over their heads. 

It’s a good memory, one that has come back to her often since they took back their home. 

She doesn’t pay attention to the man at first. He looks haggard, he doesn’t look different than any other person she has met so far. There is an opening on her left, she notices it but doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything.  And then  the man lounges at her, screaming, “For the Boltons!”

She is familiar with the feeling of a blade piercing her skin. She has been since she was a barely flowered girl in King’s Landing. The flat of many blades has touched her bare skin. Ramsay didn’t always use knives on her, but he loved it when he did. 

It’s painful. The blade pierces her forearm. Somehow, her instincts were quicker than her sight. The commotion around her becomes almost deafening. Brienne has the man on the ground in a second. The men are flanking her. There is blood spurting out of her wound, and it’s soaking her blue dress. 

“Bring Lady Stark to safety!” Brienne shouts. 

She wants to object. She is used to pain. She is no stranger to blood, her own, staining her clothes. 

Jon likes her dress. It’s her last thought before she faints.

  The first things she notices is the smell of pine and wood. There is also a faint smell on lavender surrounding her. 

The bed is soft. There is pain. It throbs from her arm, reaching her shoulders and neck. Did Ramsay visit her?

No. He is dead. I killed him. She thinks. 

Her heart beats faster when she tries to open her eyes but she finds out that she can’t. The lids are heavy. It takes more than one attempt, and when she finally opens her eyes, she sees the worried face of Maester Wolkan.

“My Lady,” the man says, “You’re awake!”

She is, but when she tries to sit on her bed, she realizes she is not strong enough. The Maester needs to help her, so she props two pillows behind her back. She feels exhausted.

“What happened?” she asks. There are vague recollections of a man launching at her,  a Bolton loyalist. He was aiming for her heart, but her instinct took over and she ended up being wounded on her arm.

Right. The cause of the throbbing pain she has been feeling. 

“How am I here?” 

Darkness claimed her, And there had been nothing she could do to fight it. 

“You were brought here by Lady Brienne and your soldiers. You were losing much blood.”

Yes. And it was not the first time people tried to kill her and made her bleed. Fainting was a luxury she never had, after she saw her father die. 

“Lady Brienne told me you went very pale, it might have been the fright.”

“You were here when I was married to Ramsay. I never had the luxury of fainting. Am I all right?” she asks. 

“The wound was deep, but it didn’t touch the bone and the veins. I stitched up and applied salve to prevent the infection.”

“Thank you.”

“I also checked on you to ascertain that -” he trails off.

“I’m not with child, " she says resolutely. The Lords are still waiting to see if Ramsay’s seed took root in her. It’s what is saving her from a marriage proposal and Littlefinger's attention. 

She is drinking moon tea because she is not stupid, and Maester Wolkan is aware of that.

She is drinking moon tea because Jon doesn’t want to father bastards, and they cannot bring a child into the world. 

It is the price she needs to pay to be with him, and she accepts it. 

The secrecy, the lies, the morally ambiguous things - it’s all worth it. 

“You are exhausted, Lady Stark. You fainted because you had a fright, and you are not eating and sleeping enough.”

Right now she can barely lift her head from her pillow. She knows she is under milk of the poppy or some other drug because she feels sleepy and the throbbing in her arm is growing more distant. 

“Will I make a full recovery?”

“Provided you rest for a few days, I’m cautiously optimistic.”

“Good. We need to discuss other matters as well.”

He nods and says, “We will, my Lady,” He tilts his head to the side and asks, “Shouldn’t I fetch the King and Lady Brienne? They have been waiting outside your chambers. The King was understandably very concerned about you.”

She sighs. “Yes. But we’ll talk tomorrow, Maestter. I expect your full cooperation.”

“Of course, my Lady.” the man pauses for a moment and then says, “You freed us from the Boltons. I will never forget that.”

“Send Brienne and Jon inside and check the rookery,” she says. 

The man nods, he bows his head and leaves the room. A moment later, Brienne and Jon get inside her chambers. 

“My lady,”  Brienne says, “I failed you today. I’m sorry!”

She didn’t. Not really. Brienne never left her side. The man was too quick with his knife and she had him on the ground in a second. 

“You did not. Don’t be sorry.”

Jon’s brow is furrowed. She sees that he has balled his hands in fist that he’s keeping at his side. He is furious. From the looks he exchanges with the woman, she thinks they might have had words while she was unconscious. 

“Nonetheless, I am sorry.” Brienne says, “I swear it will not happen again.”

She looks at the woman and she wants to tell her not to make other oaths. People tried to kill her since she was a girl. The man at Wintertown wasn’t the first and she thinks he won’t be the last. 

Although she is still unclear about some of what happened, she remembers noticing the opening and not getting closer to the men assigned to her protection. It was her fault. 

She was distracted. 

After she speaks, Brienne leaves the room, telling them she will be outside and that they will be working on her protection detail. 

“I give you my word. No one will ever get as close to you as the man did at Wintertown,” she says. 

“Thank you,” she says. She feels exhausted. She had forgotten what blood loss was like. How weak it made her. 

Brienne leaves the room, leaving her alone with Jon. 

“It’s not her fault,” she says. 

“She is your sworn shield. If not hers, whose?”

“The Bolton loyalist in our dungeon. Our soldiers who couldn’t keep their formation. Myself for being distracted.”

“You will not blame yourself for this,” he says. 

“I was thinking about Arya, I was day dreaming. I saw the opening but I thought I was safe.”

“Still not your fault, Sansa.”

“No. But I felt safe. That was my mistake.”

“I want you to be safe.”

“I’m not. We didn’t catch all the Bolton loyalists, and Cersei will make her move.”

Jon sits on the bed next to her and takes her hand in his. “She is leagues away, in the South,”

“She always found a way to destroy her enemies.”

“You almost seem to admire her.”

“I don’t. She is a hateful woman. She is short-sighted and far less clever than she thinks she is. Yet. Margaery Tyrell is dead. And she still thinks I killed her son.”

“I will not let her harm you.”

Part of her wants to snap at him, to remind him of the man who tried to kill her. He looks exhausted, wrung out with worry. So she doesn’t say anything. 

“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment. “We thought we got them all.”

She nods. So did she. She knows that they searched for Bolton’s loyalists at the Dreadfort and in the woods surrounding it. 

“He will die for this.”

She nods. “He has to. We need to show our strength.”

“Do you think I care about that? He wanted to kill you! He is lucky I’m not siccing Ghost on him,”

Their fingers are interlaced, and Sansa says, “My uncle knows about us.”

“So does Davos,” he says after a second. 

“What do we do?” she asks. 

“I’m not giving up on you. Not now, not ever.”

“But we need to be more careful.” She says. “I will not jeopardize your crown.”

“I don’t care about my crown.”

“You do.” she says, “And it’s fine. You will be a good king.”

“Who makes love to his sister.”

“If - things go wrong. Lay the blame on me. The Lords will believe you. I was raised by Cersei. My second husband was a monster.”

“No,” Jon says. “You will not pay for my sins.”

“It’s our sins, and I’m already tainted anyway.”

“No. You are brave and smart, and kind. Whatever you think they did you, it has no bearing on the woman I see. The woman I…love.”

What could she reply to that? Especially because she felt weak and exhausted. 

“There was so much blood, and you were so pale,” he says. 

“I will be fine. Maester Wolkan said so.”

“We’ll need to watch our back. We need to protect each other.”

There is a half smile playing on her lips, “I like the idea of it.”

There is a moment of silence, and then she says, “I don’t believe it is a sin.”

“I didn’t mean -” he trails off.

“We are not hurting anyone. The gods don’t care.”

He doesn’t reply. She knows, deep down, he believes in the Gods more than she does. His sense of right and wrong is not as skewed as hers.  She fears that one day, he will realize that she is tainted and will hate her for dragging him down with her. 

 “It’s not the gods I’m worried about,” he says after a moment. 

Is it Father’s memory, his ghost, or the very alive Lords of the North who chose a bastard as their King?  She can’t tell for sure. She can only try to protect him from ghosts and lords. 

“I know,” she says. “we will be careful. The Lords will leave after the coronation, and we will be safer.”

“I’ll find if there are more Bolton men hiding,” 

“And I will not forget that I need to be careful. Just because I feel safe, it doesn’t mean I can be careless.”

“You should feel safe, Sansa. You are the Lady of Winterfell. Technically, you are a princess.”

She laughs. Her arm hurts, but she can’t help it.  

He is still holding her hands, and he is smiling, “What?” he asks. 

“I’m Lady of Winterfell. It is the only title I want. And I was trying to imagine you telling Arya that she is a princess of the North.”

His smile grows wider. “She would hate it.”

“Yes, I think so. I will let her wear breeches and do whatever she wants when she comes back.”

Jon and Rickon feel it even more strongly than she does. She will come back - Bran too. 

For years, she thought she was the only one left, and she can’t believe she feels so strongly that her siblings will be back in Winterfell. It’s not just hope; it’s a feeling with deep roots, shared by her brothers. 

The pack will reunite. 

The Twins, 303 C.A. 

The only thing she truly regrets about killing Walder Frey is that the man died too quickly. He had a clean death, and he didn’t deserve it. He barely even tasted the pie she made him. 

His body and the Maester’s are well hidden. 

She doesn’t like wearing the man’s face. She wasn’t prepared to hate it as much as she does. She thinks the bitterness she hears is only part playing a part. 

All the Freys men are in the halls where her mother and brother were slaughtered. During the preparation for that night, she spent hours staring at the empty spaces, seeing Mother and Robb everywhere. 

She knows she would have died, too, if it weren’t for the Hound. She would have died outside the walls without even seeing them. She wasn’t strong enough at the time. 

She spent a long time during her travel back to Westeros planning what she would do to the Freys. Killing old lord Walder is not enough. The whole House needs to be eliminated, root and stem. The Twins need to become a cautionary tale. People need to know that no one can fuck with the Starks. Even if she is the last one of them. 

She calls attention to herself. She rises from her seat and says, “You’re wondering why I brought you all here. After all, we just had a feast. Since when does old Walder gives two feasts in such a short time?”

The Freys laugh. They feasted when they took her mother’s house. They are greedy, little men. And men die. 

“Well,” she says, “It’s no good being Lord of the Riverlands if you can’t celebrate with your family.”

Father, Mother, Robb, Rickon, Bran, Syrio, Septa Mordane, Jory Cassell. 

Where are Sansa and Jon? They are her only family left. 

“That’s what I say!” she continues. 

She hears someone shouting “Yes!” from the crowd. They cheer. They are happy. They took the Riverlands from the Tullys, and they think they deserve it. 

She snaps her fingers, and the serving girls start bringing the wine. Good. This face feels too tight on her skin. She has many names on her list and she is tired of living as Walder Frey. 

“I’ve gathered every Frey that means a damn thing so that I can tell you my plans for this great house now that winter has come.”

You were right, Father. Winter has come. I am Winter, now. she thinks. She is smiling

“But first, a toast! No more of that Dornish horse piss! This is the finest Arbor Gold! Proper Wine for proper heroes!” she says. She raises her goblet and adds, “Stand together!”

“Stand together!” the men echo. 

They are all drinking. The young woman at his side takes her goblet. Is she Old Walder’s young wife? She is her own age! She has big eyes and when she tells her not to drink, she looks terrified at the idea of upsetting him. 

“I’m not wasting good wine on a damn woman!” She says. 

She killed people to have access to the kitchen and Walder Frey. She doesn’t know if they were innocents. She cannot afford the time or the luxury to care. Their deaths were quick and clean. She is not killing innocent women who were sold like chattel to old Lords. 

Isn’t it what happened to Sansa? Not a single night goes by that she doesn’t hear her screams in the Sept of Baelor when they killed their father. She never saw the beheading. She was spared. Her sister’s screams have haunted her dreams and the moments before she falls asleep ever since. 

“Maybe I’m not the most pleasant man,” she says. “I’ll admit it. But I’m proud of you lot. You’re my family. The men who helped me slaughter the Starks at the Red Wedding.”

More cheers. She wishes her heart beat faster, hearing people cheering against her family. It does not. Shouldn’t she feel more? 

“Yes, yes,” she says. She is disgusted with the skin she is wearing, with those people, with her bloody heart which beats calmly in her chest even if she wants it to drum against her ribcage. 

“Cheer. Brave men, all of you. Butchered a woman, pregnant with her babe. Cut the throat of a mother of five. Slaughtered your guests after you invited them into your home.”

They are not cheering any more. She sees that some men are already bringing their hands to their throats. 

“But you didn’t slaughter every one of the Starks. No, no. That was your mistake.”

Some men are coughing. She made the exact formula of the poison herself. She poured it into the wine and waited for the men to gather. Is it worse than killing innocent people after giving them their guest rights? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care. 

“You should have ripped them all out, root and stem.”

Blood. Frey blood, finally. Old Walder didn’t spill blood on the table or the floor. Her cut was surgical, precise. The man died quickly, pissing his breeches while looking into her eyes. 

The poison is quicker. They say it’s a coward’s weapon, but she disagrees. She needed something that would take out all the men of the House without alerting the Lannisters’ suspicions. She needed something that would work quickly before one of those little men understood what was happening.

Did Robb understand before they killed him? Did her mother? They never had a chance. That is exactly what she wants for the Freys. All of them.

“Leave one wolf alive, and the sheep are never safe.”

They are coughing and falling to the ground. They are scared and in pain, hearing Lord Walder telling them that they fucked with House Stark and they didn’t kill all of them. She remains. 

She waits until the last man is on the floor, the room smells of blood and piss and wine, when she finally removes Lord Walder’s face. Only serving girls remain and the young Lady Frey. 

“When people ask you what happened here…tell them the North remembers. Tell them Winter has come for House Frey.”

Her hands don’t shake. Her voice is soft. She doesn’t need to scream like when she was a child. Her heartbeat is regular, almost slow. 

She needs to find her uncle Edmure before going to King’s Landing. He can seek refuge in some House loyal to the Tullys, and she hopes they will take back Riverrun from the Lannisters now that all the Freys are dead. 

She asks a serving girl about her uncle. He is in the dungeons. She doesn’t want to wear Lord Walder’s face again. She needs to feel her heart beating fast and hard in her chest. She needs to shake the last of the man from her mind. She will make a swift work of the men in the dungeons. 

She needs to leave before people come. She needs to go to King’s Landing. Joffrey is dead, but Cersei Lannister is still alive. And from what she heard, she is Queen now. 

She is in her solar, Brienne outside the door guarding her, when she announces Baelish wants to see her. Perhaps she should have stayed in bed as Maester Wolkan cautioned. The truth is that her King has many duties, and Winterfell won’t run itself. She simply couldn’t take another day to rest. 

She tells Brienne to let the man in and school her features. He doesn’t expect her to smile, he knows it would be a lie, he told her a long time before that all the people were better liars than her. 

She has learned a thing or two since that day. 

“Good morning, Lady Sansa,” he says. “It’s good to see you. I was terribly worried about you the other day.”

“Good morning, Lord Baelish,” she replies. 

Brienne decided to stay inside. As a widow, she doesn’t technically need a chaperone, but her sworn sword knows perfectly well that she doesn’t trust that man. Her uncle told her this was one of the reasons she used to convince him to go North rather than stay in Riverrun. 

“Will you be there for the execution, my lady?” Baelish asks. 

“Yes. Will you?” she asks.

“Of course. I am rather glad your sworn sword was there,” he says, “I was told you had dealt with the Bolton loyalists.”

“Evidently, we didn’t find all of them,” she replies with an even voice. 

“The Knights of the Vale are at your disposal, my lady, should our King’s protection not be enough.”

“It is, though.”

“He was losing the battle before the Knights arrived. One could almost wonder how much he truly values your safety, my lady.”

She sees Brienne cocking an eyebrow at his words. As much as he tries, Baelish is not in their inner circle. He doesn’t know; he can never know what Jon means to her or what she means to him. Brienne might judge them if she knew the truth, but she knows Jon was distraught when she was brought back to Winterfell. She told him he asked her what happened, and she knows the soldiers who accompanied her to Wintertown have been reprimanded for not keeping their formation. 

And she cannot give an answer to Baelish. The truth would make him suspicious - if he isn’t already, she cannot guarantee that he doesn’t know the truth - and he could spot a lie unless it is is well crafted. 

“It was an accident, my lord,” she says. 

“It would have been a convenient accident,” he says. “he is a king without a true seat of power.”

“He is a Stark, Lord Baelish.” she says, “Winterfell is his home.”

“But you are the Lady of Winterfell. When he marries, he will need his ancestral home for his heirs.”

I am his heir. And my brothers and sister are alive! She thinks. 

“My brothers live. We don’t know where my sister is, but we think she is alive.”

“Only your sister is of age, is she not? The King would have to be their regent, as their half-brother . And forgive me, Lady Sansa. I know you hope to be reunited with your family, but it’s been years since anyone saw your siblings.”

“Is there a point to this conversation, Lord Baelish?” she asks. She can be cutting since he has just reminded her that part of her family is still scattered around the world. He would be suspicious if she wasn’t. 

“I was merely observing, and I wanted to see you, my lady. You have been avoiding me lately.”

“I’ve been running a castle, my Lord. We are preparing for a war.”

“You should start to think about the afterwards, my lady.”

She does. It’s all she can think about. They need to win the war against the Others. Sometimes, she thinks Jon will be consumed by the war even before it’s fought. 

“What is in the afterwards, my lord?”

“Whatever you wish. If it is within my power it will be yours.”

“You have a lot of power, my lord.”

“So do you, my lady. You took back your home. And the North could have been yours, had things gone differently.”

He doesn’t state that it can still happen if desired; however, this notion hangs unspoken in the air between them. 

“The Lords made their choice, as unfair as it might be.” she lies. 

“Lords are fickle. The threat beyond the Wall is far away. Shouldn’t you concentrate on the threat in the South? Shouldn’t the Lords have their justice against House Lannister?”

The Lords don’t care about the South. Baelish still doesn’t understand the North. They broke away from the Seven Kingdoms, they will not fight South. They can barely put together a host to take back Rivverrun. 

“The Queen of the Six Kingdoms is not a forgiving woman.” he warns. 

“Don’t presume to teach me about Cersei Lannister, Lord Baelish!”

“Will he defend you against her when the time comes? He couldn’t protect you here in the North. Should we survive the great war he is talking about, it should be your priority.”

He might be deceiving her with his words about Jon. He might know the truth and decided to play another type of game with her. She cannot be sure.All she knows is that his words are wrong. 

“It will, but we have a war to win first.”

“And two things might happen. We all die, and our problems will cease. Or we win, and as I said, everything my lady wishes she will have.”

“What about your wishes?” 

“I thought they aligned yours. Was I wrong?”

The wound in her arm is throbbing, making her nauseous. She doesn’t want to lie to Baelish while Brienne is there. She is too honest, too straightforward. She listened to words skirting treason. She doesn’t want her to listen to her lies. 

She has no choice. For the time being she has to lie. 

“Not as such. Will you leave me, Lord Baelish? My arm hurts and I’ll need to call the Maester.”

“Of course, Lady Sansa. I am glad to know you survived the attack.”

“Thank you, Lord Baelish. I will think about your words.”

It’s not a lie. She will turn them over and over in her head, trying to determine what the man knows, what she can use against him, how careful she needs to be with Jon. 

He kisses her hand and she has gotten very good at not flinching at his touch, at masking the disgust she feels. 

He needs to think that she is slowly but surely forgiving him for selling her to the Boltons. He needs to think that she is grateful for his help, but still too traumatized by her husband to seek a new marriage. He needs to think yhat he has power over her. 

He doesn’t. She is only interested in the Knights of the Vale, and her uncle is working on the Lords who truly control them, aided by Lord Royce. 

Time. She needs more time. 

She feels like she doesn’t have much. She feels like everything might be upended and she doesn’t know what to do to avoid it. 

Jon’s crown is made of steel. It’s not the crown Robb wore. That one got lost in the War, and he would not want it anyway. He told her he would only wear it at the coronation, that he didn’t care about wearing a crown. 

She does. The Northern Lords need and want a celebration after so much suffering. It is a sign of hope. Robb was not crowned in Winterfell. It happened during the war. They have a reprieve, now. 

Cersei is far away, and there is wall between the Night King and them. She told Jon that their people deserve to celebrate and deserve to know they have someone who will lead them through Winter. 

Their King will exact justice, will be fair and just, and the North is, once more, safe. Or, as safe as any place can be. 

Jon spent the last night in her arms, neither of them being able to sleep. 

“I feel like I am tempting the gods’ wrath.” he said. 

“How?”

“I’m a bastard taking your place.”

“I don’t want a crown. I thought I had made my point clear. The Lords chose you.”

“Because you sicced Lady Mormont on them.”

She laughed at his words. “I did not. She told me she would follow you, she told me the North needs you now. It needs Ned Stark’s son to guide them against the Others.”

His breath was hot against her skin when he sighed. “And when the Others are defeated?”

“We will leave in peace here. We will have dealt with Baelish, perhaps Cersei will drink herself to an early grave. We will watch Winter turn into Spring, see Rickon grow up, marry in the Godswood.”

“You are still a dreamer.”

“Only when I am here with you.” she admitted, “you make me believe there is still something good in this world.”

“You are something good. The day you came to Castle Black was -” Jon trailed off. He tilted his head up from her shoulder and looked at her, “I was in a dark place.”

She nodded. She knew. She was still crawling her way back from the darkness within herself. When she was with Jon it felt easier. She felt like herself, a better version of the girl she used to be. 

The Lords are gathered in Godswood. She has studied the stories of the Kings of Winter with Davos. The crown depicts two snarling dire wolves facing each other. She designed it, and the people who made it did an exceptional job. 

She knows he will not wear the crown again unless he really has to, but he seems resigned now. In the end, they decided that she would crown him as Ned Stark’s eldest living child. 

The Lords know the words they have to say already. Aegon Targaryen might have conquered the Seven Kingdoms, but the North remembers. 

They will never bend again to anyone. She knows she is selfish. And Jon is, too. They can never marry and have children together, who would be heirs to Winterfell and the North. Jon will not marry. She will not marry. Rickon will have to. Her brother, who is still wild and asks him about their parents every day, and about Robb and Arya. 

It’s unfair, but they are not Lannisters or Targaryens. They are the Starks of the North, and she has shamed her family enough. 

Jon doesn’t want to hear those words from her. He wears his guilt with dignity, and he makes her feel so loved; even now, as they lead the procession that will stop in front of the Weirwood tree. 

She knows Baelish is there, somewhere. She keeps a carefully blank face because he needs to think that she feels slighted and humiliated by that turn of events. It’s a dangerous game because there is so much at stake, their whole lives. Baelish would have Jon killed if he could. He still hasn’t tried anything because he doesn’t have access to him, he doesn’t know him, and he cannot come up with one of his plans if he doesn’t know the King’s habits.  

Ser Davos and her uncle have helped her with this task. Jon is never alone in the same space as Littlefinger. Baelish has to lurk in a corner like he did the day the Lords of the North proclaimed Jon king. 

Northerners are not extravagant. Their ceremonies are solemn. Jon is wearing his own clothes, he insisted on that. He told her that they were at war and that his clothes were fine. 

“You made me my cloak. It’s good,” he said. 

She is wearing a dark grey dress. Stark Colors. Her hair is pulled in a Northern braid. 

Lord Manderley starts. He says the words, said for all the Kings of Winter. Lady Mormont continues, and finally, Lord Hornwood speaks the final words. All spoken in the Old Tongue. 

She crowns Jon, her heart pounding in her chest, her pride and her love for him making her feel lightheaded.

Jon accepts the crown. She bows her head to him as he makes his Oaths as a King: to protect the people, to honour their forefathers, to lead the North, to vanquish the enemy. 

He looks like a King. It’s not just the crown on his head. It’s the way he carries himself, how the Freefolk are there, and how they accept him. They will not bend the knee, but still they see their leader in Jon. 

And she knows he hates the crown. but it looks perfect on him. He is the King in the North. He is her king from this day until his last day. 

She is careful with her touch, but after the ceremony, he offers her his arm to go back to the Great Hall, and she accepts. 

Had they been other people, they would have married under the weirdwood tree. Even if it reminds her of her marriage to Ramsay. They are not other people. 

And there is a feast they need to attend. 

He is glad that they decided to settle the matter with the Karstarks and the Umbers before the feast. He feels like an impostor wearing the crown. He looks at young Alys and Ned and can’t help thinking that they are terribly young, too young to bear the weight of their recent past. 

Sansa is sitting at his side, Rickon is next to her. Ned Umber looks younger than Rickon. He is just a child. The North needs stability. They need to build their defences, store their granaries and larders and prepare for the war against the Others. Wiping whole Houses from the map would not help anyone. 

Both Lady Alys and Lord Ned look afraid. They don’t know what their fate will be. He knows Sansa can’t forgive them, she is not saying a word however, wearing a blank look on her face. 

Lady Karstak and Lord Umber bend their knee, and they pledge their alleggiance to House Stark. He thinks the Lords have not forgotten their betrayals. Lady Mormont is scowling, but this is his first act as King. Jon Snow, First of His Name and everything that goes with it. 

They will not talk about the wars tonight. Sansa reminded him how hard the North fought. They need one night to celebrate their survival. They broke from the Seven Kingdoms and will never bend the knee again. 

Was Robb as terrified as he feels now? He broke his oaths to the Night Watch to do the right thing. How can people trust him? He looks at Sansa, who looks absolutely calm and poised. She is stunning in Stark Grey. She should be Queen. She trusted him, and he will do everything he can to be worthy of her. 

He doesn’t see Baelish. To be fair the hall is packed. The Free Folk and the Northerners are building a relationship. It’s not without setbacks, but some of these people have already fought together against the Boltons. The Knights of the Vale are still untrusting of the Free Folk, but he has seen men sparring together in the yards. It will take time, but they will build a relationship as well. 

Rickon looks happy. He is listening to something the Blackfish is saying, and he is nodding vigorously, and he is grinning. 

Winterfell’s larders cannot exactly afford an extravagant feast, not so soon after they returned to the Keep. There is food, however: mutton, venison, roasted vegetables, fresh bread. There is also wine and ale. 

Some men sing, and after a while, they are in their cups. They don’t have a minstrel, but they found some musicians thanks to Lord Mazin. 

Winterfell is alive. It is bright, it reminds himm of the home he had as a child. The lingering darkness left by the Boltons is fading. Sansa is working hard to rebuild their home and erase the marks left by the Iron Born and the Boltons. 

The Lords are loud and bolstering. He can hear Tormund from where he is sitting, and he sees that some people are dancing. 

 He looks at Sansa. She is not eating, but there is a soft smile on her lips. She is satisfied. Everything went well. 

“Will you not dance, Sansa?” he asks. 

“I’m a widow. It would hardly be appropriate.” she leans over him and says in a low voice, “and there is only one man I wish to dance with. Also highly inappropriate.”

“Even one dance?” he asks. He has never danced in his life. He has no idea what is compelling him to ask her. He feels drunk. He hasn’t even touched the ale. He is drunk on her. She crowned him in the Godswood. She made him King - and he wants to give her one moment of peace, of happiness. 

“Do you even know how to dance, Your Grace?”

“You taught me when we were children.” he says. 

It’s one of his fondest memories from their childhood. Before social status became a wall between them, and she was too absorbed in her duties, and he was too sullen. They were happy children, and she taught him how to dance. She practiced with Robb for hours. 

She furrows her brows. Perhaps she doesn’t remember. She tells him so. “I’m sorry,” she says. He wants so badly to take her hand that he is almost shaking, but he smiles and says, “You were bossy.”

She lets out a little laugh and says, “Yes, that sounds like me when I was a child.”

“Will you indulge your King?” he asks. He looks around. Davos is looking at them. He looks sad. 

“Aye,” she says. She stops before adding in a low voice, “I would do anything for my King.”   

He would go in front of the Weirdwood tree again in a heartbeat if he could. In his mind, he has already said the vows. She is his. He is hers. 

Yet, if people heard her - even if the tone of her voice is carefully blank, what would they do? 

It’s dangerous. She tells him constantly that he is not dishonouring her, but he is putting her at risk, and it goes against everything in himself to allow that. It’s too late, however.

The Lords know they are close. Will they see more when they dance? He shouldn’t have asked her. He remembers how much she loved dancing when they were younger. Life took so much from her, he just wants her to be happy in her own home. 

He wants to hold her in his arms. He wants her to smile and doesn’t want it to be a secret. 

He feels people’s eyes on them. He hears some whispers.  He sees that she straightens her back and they go to the centre of the hall where other people are already dancing.

Their bodies are close. He holds back. He can’t hold her like he wants to. He can’t feel her body pressed close. He can barely look at her. She is doing the same. 

They would know if they looked at each other now. Their King and the Lady of Winterfell. 

“Thank you for the crown,” he says to break the tension that is mounting between them. "I recognize your hand in the design.”

“My hand?”

“I’ve seen you make your dresses from sketches since we were children. Besides, who else would do it?”

“Ser Davos helped me.”

“I will thank him as well.” 

“You did good with Lady Alys and Lord Ned,” she says. “You are good at this.”

“This?”

“Ruling. It suits you.”

He smiles. He can’t help it. She is beautiful and smart. She should have been Queen. If he survives the war against the Others, he will abdicate and give her the throne. She will be the Queen of Spring, and he will be by her side until they breathe their last. 

He doesn’t deserve her. She could have so much more, and yet he is selfish. He can’t let her go. Even if it meant they weren’t in danger. 

He makes her twirl, and she laughs. It warms his heart. He is making her happy. She seems startled by her own joy.  

“Even when we don’t see eye to eye?” he asks after a moment. 

“Aye. I’m on your side. Always.” she tells him. She is careful with the tone of her voice. They don’t know who might hear them, but her words shot straight through him, in his heart. His heart that belongs completely to her.  

He doesn’t reply to her words. He can’t, not while the Lords are watching them, and someone might hear them. Their fingers interlace for a few seconds while they dance, and then she lets them go. 

“And I will always value your counsel. I will listen to you,” he says eventually. 

The song is coming to an end.  Dancing with her was unbelievable. They moved seamlessly together. A trained eye might perhaps glimpse the familiarity they have with each other’s bodies. The intimacy that was borne between them even before they made love for the first time. 

They walk to their table. For some reason no other Lord has asked Sansa to dance, not even Baelish. Do they feel, maybe even at an unconscious level, that she is his? Ladies have not asked him to dance with them either. Perhaps they, too, feel that his connection with her doesn’t leave room for anyone else. Or, perhaps, the night is young, and the Lords allowed the King in the North and the Lady of Winterfell the first dance of the night. 

They return to their table. He sees that she is thirsty. She should eat more, even Maester Wolkan told her. There is wine in their goblets, and he knows it comes from the Manderleys.  They brought it for the occasion. 

He drinks his ale, and she drinks her wine. There was watered-down wine in her goblet before. Servants must have served wine while they were dancing. 

He knows Sansa doesn’t particularly like wine. She says it reminds her of King’s Landing, of Cersei and Tyrion. 

He hears when she coughs. It’s a wet sound that he doesn’t like. There is another cough, and when she turns to look at him, blood trails down from her nose. Blood and bile are staining her lips.  

She stands, and she sways. 

“Sansa, what’s wrong?” he asks, standing up. He idly notices that most Lords did the same. She shows him her hand, stained with blood before another fit of cough hits her. 

“P -poison!” she manages to say. 

She hears Brienne calling for Maester Wolkan, who, for some reason, is in the Hall, 

Her knees are giving out, and he catches her fall before she can slide to the ground. She is spasming and making chocking sounds.  

He knows those sounds will haunt him until the day he dies. 

Her nails scratch her neck. “C-can’t breathe” she wheezes. Scarlet drops of blood appear on her neck when she has scratched at it.

“Don– don’t let me die.” she pleads to Jon, her voice is broken. He holds her tighether at him.  

Maester Wolkan crouches next to them. She is in Jon’s arms. And he doesn’t give a damn about what the Lords might be thinking. She cannot die. She will not die. Not on his watch. Not that night. Not ever. 

She is supposed to die when they’re old and grey, in their bed, surrounded by her family, holding his hand. He is supposed to die right after her because he doesn’t want to exist in a world without her. 

“What are you doing here?” Jon asks him. 

The Maester ignores him, he takes her face in his hands, more blood come out from her nose, more bile from her mouth. 

 She is dying. She can’t die. He will not allow it. 

The maester quickly rummages in a satchel and takes out a vial. The liquid in it is dark. 

“My Lady. You need to drink this!”

Jon wants to tell the man that she can’t drink. She could barely utter the words she said. The poison is strangling her.  

“Do it, or you’ll die! We don’t have much time!”

“Stay with me,” he whispers against her hair. Sansa tilts her head back, but her eyes are glassy, with blood on the white, and she has grown even paler. 

 He tilts her head up with his hands and helps the Maester, making her drink the antidote. 

“Bring Lady Sansa Stark to the infirmary,” he says, “and close the gates. Winterfell is on lockdown! No one leaves!”

She is still alive. His Sansa is a fighter. She is holding onto him, and she manages to ask Maester Wolkan, “The Strangler?”

Her maester nods. One of his chains has been given to him for the study of poisons. 

“Yes,  my lady,”

“Sansa,” he says. She is still in his arms. 

“Cersei,” she states. It’s the last word she says before darkness envelopes her. 

He discovers a few things after Sansa loses consciousness. 

The first is that he doesn’t give a single fuck about what any Lord will say or think when he takes her in his arms and brings her out of the Hall. 

The second is that Sansa, Brienne and Maester Wolkan have been working on a system in case the Starks were poisoned. Antidotes from poisons have been made since they took Winterfell back, from the most common to the more exotic, like the Strangler. Someone will tell him later that it’s the poison that killed Joffrey Baratheon. 

The third thing is that aside for Rickon, Davos, Tormund, Brienne and Ser Brynden Tully, he doesn’t trust anyone currently in Winterfell. 

The other thing is that if he focuses on the slow rise and fall of her chest, he will not go crazy. It’s the only tether he has with sanity. Sansa needs to survive, or he will fracture completely. 

No one can get out of Winterfell, but the Blackfish tells him he has put together a small host to search outside in case the poisoners have already fled. 

“We will find them.” he says. 

He is so afraid and so angry that words just don’t come out. He nods. They are outside the chamber where Maester Wolkan directed him to bring Sansa. 

She is pale on the bed, except for the red stains under her nose and neck. She clawed her own neck. 

He can still see her hand stained with blood. He can hear her wet coughs. Whoever did this to her will die. Fuck the old ways. They will taste their own insides before he is done with them. 

“Your Grace,” Maester Wolkan says, “you need to step outside now.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says.

“The procedure is not done yet. We need to purge the poison from her body. The procedures will not be kind to Lady Stark; she deserves privacy, and she needs quiet!”

He thought he gave her the antidote? 

He doesn’t want to leave. He needs to see that she is still alive. She pleaded with him not to let her die. He needs to be by her side. 

“Your Grace, with all due respect, we cannot lose time. Leave. Now!”

Someone is at his side. He notices it’s Davos. When did he get there? 

“Come with me, lad. She is in good hands,” he says. 

“Save her,” he says. He doesn’t even recognize his own voice: it’s choked and hoarse. 

The Maester nods. He looks at Sansa: beads of perspiration are on her forehead, and there are tears at the corner of her eyes trailing down her temples. 

He shivers when they are outside the room. He is no stranger to blood and violence, and yet his body is reacting to it as if he were a green boy, shocked by the sight of blood. 

The woman he loves’ blood. Sansa in his arm convulsing, fighting the poison, pleading to him not to let her die. As if he ever could!

He can’t lose her. He will not survive it. He doesn’t want to.

“The Lords are upset,” Davos says. “They are suspecting of the Karstarks and the Umbers.”

This shakes him from his numbness. “It was Cersei Lannister,” he says. 

Sansa’s last words before she lost consciousness. They meant to read the raven from King’s Landing the day after when discussing the War. She told him Cersei was not to be underestimated. 

“She didn’t try to kill you. You are the King in the North.”

“I’m just Ned Stark’s bastard. She doesn’t care about me. She hates Sansa.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. 

Yes. But talking about it requires more strength than he has. They are still outside the chamber. 

“She will heal. Maester Wolkan knows what he is doing,” Davos says.

“Cersei did this. She is dead, Ser Davos. She is dead.”

“Your Grace, listen to me!” Ser Davos says.

“She was dying in my arms.”

“You will find the culprit. They will executed, but we need to face a fact, “

“Don’t start with that -”

“Lady Stark is not safe in Winterfell.”

He shakes his head. No, they will have food tasters and guards—more guards for her. 

“Any progress made?” he asks Davos.

“We need to interrogate the serving girls and the people in the kitchen.”

“Keep the Lords in their rooms. Brienne stays outside this door. No one except for me gets in.”

“Your Grace.”

“She was dying. Judge me all you want for my sins. But not about what I feel for her.”

Ser Davos nods. “You were happy tonight.”

He closes his eyes. He is still wearing the crown. And what a useless King he is if he cannot even protect the woman he loves?

“I’ll go and aid with the interrogation. I want to be told the minute she wakes.”

“And if she doesn’t?” he asks.

“Then the Others can take us all.”

“You don’t mean it.”

“Oh, but I do,” he sighs, “Rickon. Someone needs to check on my brother. He  must be worried.”

“Go interrogate the kitchen staff and the serving ladies. I will deal with the rest.”

He nods. He doesn’t want to leave the spot he is in outside the door, but Sansa deserves justice. And she will have it. It’s the only thing he can do for her. 

Fury, that red haze he has experienced before, is nothing compared to what he is feeling now. 

He takes the crown off his head and gives it to Davos. 

“Your Grace.” he says. 

He doesn’t hear him, he stalks the hallway, darkness filling him. Fear for Sansa making his movements jerky. 

He is not the king in the North, not now. He is the man who survived the Battle of the Bastards and beat Ramsay Bolton until the skin of his knuckles broke. He is a bloody thing, a mass of fury, a man in love who is terrified.

The servants are terrified of him when he goes to the dungeons. They all swear that they would never harm Lady Stark, that they arre loyal to the Starks. 

He lets Ghost enters the cells. They are afraid. Good. Sansa was afraid too. He is terrified. 

None of them posioned Sansa. 

It’s almost dawn when the Blackfish returns with a boy. He looks young, comely. He doesn’t remember ever seeing him in Winterfell. 

Ghost circles him, and the boy pisses himself..

“Who are you?” he asks. “Don’t lie,”

He is from White Harbour. He was paid enough gold so that he could provide for his family. His mother and sister can live comfortably now.  

“Who paid you?” He asks. 

The boy swears he doesn't know. He tells him everything except what he truly needs to know. 

“You are going to die. I will make it slow. I will make you beg for death. Or it can be quick. Who paid you, boy?”

“A man from the South. Knew I was working for the Manderlys. Knew we were bringing wine.”

“What orders did he give you?”

“To change Lady Stark’s goblet.”

“To poison her.”

He can’t touch the boy. He is standing back. He knows he will tear him from limb to limb if he touches him. 

“You poisoned her goblet,” he says.

“My hands trembled. I spilled some of it.”

It is probably the only reason she is still alive. 

“Who was that man?”

“I don’t know, sire. He came from the South. He paid me in gold.”

“So that your mother and sister can live comfortably. You told me. They will die, too.”

The boy, uncaring of Ghost, falls to his knees. “I did it. Gods forgive me. My mother and sister know nothing of it.”

“Pray that my sister lives through the night, boy. Pray that she recovers, or you and all of your family will be ripped away root and stem..”

He’s just a boy, barely more than a child. He worked in the kitchens. He poisoned Sansa. 

He meant his threats. The boy will die, but so will his family if Sansa doesn’t recover. And even then, he thinks the punishment barely fits the crime. 

“Mercy. For my family, my King. They are innocents.”

He pardoned Lady Karstark and Lord Umber. 

He cannot be merciful here. Or Cersei will send other people. And Baelish will try to turn what happened to his advantage. 

There is a part of him that expects the boy to tell him he is just a bastard, that he is no real king. He is a bastard who is fucking his sister. Why should he decide about his life? The boy, however,  crumbles down, hugging his knees to his chest.

“You poisoned a Highborn Lady, the Lady of Winterfell, my sister. What the fuck did you expect?”

“I did it for my family.”

“We have that in common, boy.”

He needs to go back to Sansa. He feels like he can’t breathe without her. No one came to tell him anything. He supposes it means that she is still alive, that she is fighting. His Sansa is a fighter, she is stronger than she thinks, she is stronger than most people he has met. 

He leaves the boy. Guards are following him. He meets the Blackfish who tells him Rickon is upset, he saw his sister being poisoned. 

“Talk to him. She is in good hands. Your brother is alone right now,” he says. 

He nods. He wants to see Sansa, but he knows she would want him to look after their brother. She looks after their brother. She is trying to give him back a sense of normalcy after all he has been through. 

He couldn’t protect Sansa. He failed her. He can try and protect their brother. He can do better. He will do better by her. 

He will kill Cersei Lannister. 

She is in the Godswood. White all around her. She walks toward the weirdwood tree and smiles when she sees her father sitting under it, Ice and a whetstone in front of him. 

“Father,” she says. 

He looks at her and says, “I’ve been waiting for you. But this is not your time yet.”

She doesn’t understand what he means. “Father -” 

She knows he is dead. She saw him die. It tore her heart apart. It’s a wound that keeps bleeding inside of her even now. She missed him. 

He stands up and offers her his arm, saying, “Shall we take a walk, child?”

He is dead, but she can touch him. They walk in the Godswood, and the silence around them is peaceful. 

“You will defend him. Yes?” He asks. “He is a Stark.”

“Jon?” she asks. 

“Will you protect him?”

Of course, she will. She is trying to. 

“Mockingbirds, stags, lions, thorns, krakens and dragons. Will you protect him?”

“Yes. Father -” She looks at him. “I love Jon.”

“I raised you together under the same roof, but you were strangers who shared a home and blood, were you not?”

“He is good, father.”

He doesn’t reply to her words. He stops and points at a bush of winter roses. 

“Pick one, Sansa. My sister loved winter roses. I thought I had more time.”

“Time for what?”

“Pick a rose, sweetling. You used to love flowers.”

“I was a child back then.”

“They did not taint everything, my sweet child. When winter came, you were here. But you cannot stay.”

“I am not leaving Winterfell ever again.”

She isn’t looking at him now. She is looking at the winter roses. Blue and wild. They are beautiful 

“Not even to protect him?” he asks. “Not even to protect your future?”

She picks a rose. The thorns are piercing her skin, but there is no blood or pain. 

“Winterfell is my future,” she says.

“To protect your future, you must do what other Starks failed to do.”

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“You will. You were always smart, my sweet child. My children will be together and fight the coming storm. When the snow falls and the white wind blows, the lone wolf dies…”

“But the pack survives,” she says with him.

“He is part of the pack. The Wolves will endure. So must you, my child. For him and for Winterfell.”

“Yes, father.”

“We should bring the rose to my sister. I miss your mother. Robb and her are waiting for me.”

“I miss them.”

Her father cups her face in his large hands. “You are my sweet daughter. Nothing can change that.”

“But I -” she trails off. I laid with Jon. I love him. Why don’t you hate me? Why are you not disappointed or disgusted? She thinks. 

Her father’s face is soft. “Bring the rose to Lyanna. Arya looks like her, but you remind me of her now.”

“Father, I need to tell you about -”

“You saved each other. You will do it again.”

He fades, like the sun setting. And she is alone in the Godswood. The blue rose in her hands. She walks toward the crypts. She hears a lion roar somewhere behind her, and there are shadows all around her. 

The crypts are dark, but she knows her way into them. Her father asked her to bring the rose to his sister. He insisted on it. There are shadows surrounding her, moving behind her. Shadows of flames, of swords, of dragons. 

There is a girl where the statue of Lyanna is supposed to be. She is beautiful, with long hair as dark as Arya’s and a crown of blue roses is atop her head. She is crying, and there is blood on her hands now. 

The girl - it’s aunt Lyanna, the shadows tell her, she knows it in her heart.

“Protect the pack.” she says. Her voice is a song she recognizes. 

“How?” she asks. 

“The blood. It’s in the blood.” the girl says. 

She gives her the blue rose. The girl takes it in her hands. 

“It’s in the blood.”  the girl repeats. “Your love will not damn you,”

She hears lions roaring again. She hears something inhuman screeching. It’s dark, now, all around her. 

It’s in the blood. Voices say. Voices she recognizes like Brienne’s, Rickon’s, Cersei’s and voices she doesn’t know. 

The darkness is thick, but she sees the light. It’s fire, but it’s her only way out from the darkness.

She walks into the fire. 

Chapter Text

Meereen, 301 A.C.

Ser Barristan comes to her on a hot afternoon after hours of hearing petitions. She immediately notices his concern and the scroll he is holding in his hand. 

“Your Grace,” he says, “A betrayer is in our midst. Treason that cannot be ignored.”

He hands her the scroll, and she reads it. It’s been years since she saw that document. She gave it back to Jorah on the Belarion, and she has not thought about it ever since. 

If she didn’t know the truth, learning that way would break her heart. As it is, she feels sad for Jorah because she knows how deeply he regrets his choice. She has heard it in his voice and seen it on his face plenty of times over the past two years. 

Ser Barristan doesn’t know that Jorah was alone, desperate and wanted to go home. He wasn’t there, with them, when he saved her, he didn’t cross the Red Waste with them.  He wasn’t with them in Qarth, when they stole her dragons and he saved her, again. 

“You don’t seem surprised, Your Grace,” he says when she places the scroll on a table. 

“No,” she replies. She is not surprised. She is angry . Tywin Lannister has made a move against her, and of course, it’s meant to weaken her, to drive a wedge among her and closest advisors. 

People heard her say publicly that Jorah is her general, her advisor and her closest friend and she would not gamble with his life. He fought for her anyway, but the Spider has spies everywhere - perhaps those words reached Westeros, and it’s a thought that scares her. 

No one knows. No one can ever know about Jorah and her. She humoured him at first, but now she sees that keeping their relationship a secret protects him as well. 

Barristan is looking at her. He came with the scroll, proving Jorah’s betrayal to serve her. He expects a reaction. She needs to talk to Jorah first. 

“You may leave, Ser Barristan,” she says. "However, do not take any initiative without my permission, and do not mention the document to anyone.”

The man bows his head. His eyes are filled with questions, and she understands that he wants her to punish Jorah. She is not blind; she has seen the undercurrent of jealousy between the two men. 

She didn’t think it would become dangerous. 

The words on the pardon hurt. She knows exactly why he did what he did. They talked about his life before he met her, she knew how lonely and desperate he had been at time. 

She takes the scroll in her hands and sighs. 

That scroll is not about Jorah, not any more. It’s about the both of them. It’s the lies they have been telling to everyone to protect each other. It’s about how Tywin Lannister moves his pieces on the board regardless of the consequences. 

She is not even close to Westeros. She chose to stay in Meereen and rule, even when news of the Red Wedding reached them and she saw Jorah grieving his lost family. 

“We can sail to Westeros tomorrow. We can take King’s Landing and make the Lannisters pay for what they did!” she said.

He was pale, his eyes glassy. “I shamed my family. I broke my father’s heart, I don’t have the right -”

“Are your gods so cruel, Jorah?” she asked, interrupting him, “can you not mourn the aunt who raised you and your cousins? Can you not want to avenge them?”

“You are not ready. Khaleesi. We don’t have enough men, we don’t have enough ships, and your dragons are too young!”

“They are enough to take King’s Landing!”

“Not for me. Khaleesi. I will grieve my kin, and you will learn to rule. When you take the Seven Kingdoms, you will free them from oathbreakers and kingslayers. When you take the Seven Kingdoms, it will be with the might of your armies and dragons, not to avenge your knight.”

“You are more than my knight.”

“I’m just a man. You should not let your feelings cloud your judgment.”

“You are hurting.” she said, “Am I supposed to ignore that when I have the means to make them pay for what they did?”

“Yes,” he said. You made the right choice by staying here. I am proud of you.”

“Your heart is breaking,” she said, cupping his face in her hands. 

She embraced Jorah, his face in the crook of her shoulders. There were no tears in him. The grief was too potent—the outrage at what happened at the Twins too strong. 

“The North remembers.” he said after a moment. “If there is but one Stark left, The Boltons days are numbered.” 

“You have a pardon. Do you wish to go back to Bear Island and fight for your kin?” she asked. 

It would break her heart. But she would understand. “We could go North -”

He shook his head. “I would not be welcomed.”

He took her hand in his and said, “You need to understand this about the North, Khaleesi. If they broke with the South, they will never bend the knee again. They will bide their time with the Boltons, and if  a Stark heir will ask them to fight, they will.”

“Torrhen Stark bent the knee.”

“To save his people because the Starks have taken care of the people for thousands of years. Your father broke faith with them. You need to remember that.”

His words were harsh, even if his voice was gentle. He wanted her to be queen, but he always told her the North would be different. 

 “The Starks, whoever is left of them, will not forget.” he continued. 

“You seem to admire them.”

“I hated Lord Stark for condemning me. But I had broken the law. My family was loyal to the Starks for a thousand years.”

“And yet here you stand.”

“And yet here I stand. I pledged myself to you. So, we will go to Westeros when you are  ready, Khaleesi,”

“They will pay for what they did to your kin,” she said. 

She never met Jorah’s family. She has heard about Jeor, Maege and her daughters. He told her about his childhood in Bear Island. He told her that he left his family sword behind, too ashamed to bring it with him. 

“Whatever mistake you made, whatever your sins were, you paid for them. You have been atoning for them since I met you,” she said. He was not allowing himself to grieve. He still thought himself unworthy.