Chapter Text
In her life, there have been few moments that she is willing to remember where she was overwhelmed by a surprise greater than the one she is feeling. She never would have thought to see him again and yet here he is, in front of her. Alive, unharmed. King's Hand, first counselor of a foreign queen of which she was barely aware.
Tyrion remains at a safe distance. The instant before he lowered the hood of his cloak, Sansa had thought he was one of the children recruited as cooks aid or stableboys and was about to call a guard. She never would have believed, she never would have thought of him.
Being prepared for the unexpected rather than what is expected. This is a lesson that she had to make her own for some time.
Sansa squares her shoulders and closes the door of her bedchamber. Ghost leaves her side to occupy the center of the room, a strategic position of control, ideal for the attack as for defense.
She sees that Tyrion stiffens and gazes nervously towards the direwolf. "Ghost will not hurt you, unless you are not a threat." Now she feels calmer, again self-possessed. Ghost’s behavior reassures her on the unlikely but not impossible presence of more intruders. "How did you get in?"
"In the same way I intend to get out." Tyrion’s wry smile is how she remembered it: clever and apt to irritate others. "From the front door."
Sansa frowns, preventing herself to cast an uneasy glance at the door, where outside there are guards intended for her safety, chosen personally by Jon and that have got the even more intransigent agreement of Brienne.
"It isn’t the loyalty of your guards who you should be worried about, but their unfortunate habit of drinking a glass too much," he says, sensing her concerns. "Not that I disapprove. It is understandable in this cold. Shouldn’t we focus on the second big question?"
Sansa sighs, annoyed by his attitude. "Why are you here?"
"It would appear that you are not happy to see me, my lady wife." The glint in his eyes is openly amused, but the shameless way he looks at her from head to toe is flattering. Knowing him, Sansa thinks that admiration is due in large part by the fact of having found her safe and sound. He is happy, she understands, even relieved.
"My lord husband," she responds in kind.
The admiration palpably changes in open affection and something that painfully remembers the way her father looked at her with approval and pride, constantly worried about her well-being. "Look at you. You truly are a queen of the north."
"I am no queen."
If he notices the angry disgust in the word 'queen', Tyrion skips over it. "I came here on request of the Queen."
"What Queen? If you refer to Cersei-"
"I am not speaking of Cersei." The very idea dumbfounds him. "Have you not received ravens recently? Communications of strange sightings or landings out of the ordinary?"
What is he talking about? Actually, now that she reflects, Sansa must admit that she has realised an unusual shortage of correspondence, but had justified it with bad weather. Winter is no longer coming. It’s here.
"Then you have been cut off," Tyrion concludes. He doesn’t seem surprised.
And Sansa knows. Enough ravens as not to arouse suspicions, attentively selected messages, filtered informations. There is only one man capable of such a long-term plan. "It’s Littlefinger’s work. It was him."
"Petyr Baelish? Why would he?"
She doesn’t answer. For the usual reason. For having me. To put myself in the position of having to ask once again for his help. Sensing her distress at the prospect, Ghost approaches her in a heartbeat and Sansa sinks her fingers into its fur, avoiding think about the horrible 'if '.
"I advise you to prepare yourself."
"For what?"
"Jon will be here soon."
Tyrion gives her a strange look, but doesn’t comment nor addresses her tricky questions of how she know, questions that she wouldn’t know what to say.
I just know. She knows that Jon felt her turbulent emotion s through Ghost with the same certainty she knows that now he is running to her, to make sure of her safety.
When Jon knocks, at Sansa’s suggestion, Tyrion hides his face. It is a necessary precaution, given Jon’s temperament and his reactions when she spoke to him about the time spent with the Lannisters at King’s Landing.
"Sansa." John breaths her name with so obvious relief that Sansa takes his hand and smiles warmly. "Are you okay?" he asks, looking carefully at her face in search of the panic he felt through Ghost.
Sansa nods, not leaving his hand. "I was going to send a servant to call you. There is someone with whom I would like us to talk together." She hopes that he understands the implicit message. No more secrets. I want you to trust me.
Jon noted the figure in front of the fireplace, but the presence of Ghost and his lack of reaction seems to have already well disposed him towards the guest, no matter how unexpected. "A friend?"
“I hope so.”
Tyrion decides that that is the signal he was waiting to reveal himself. "It’s a shared desire."
"The Imp!"
Tyrion grins, but now there is a different light in his smile. "I guess at this point I should bring a hand to my heart and give off 'the bastard boy' with the same startled air?"
"There are no more bastards in Winterfell," Sansa intervenes with a clear warning tone. "The last one was devoured by his hounds."
"A well-deserved end to what I've heard. In this regard, my lady, your grace, I offer my condolences for the death of your brother."
Sansa’s heart has an unpleasant jolt of remorse. If I had arrived earlier. If I had not kept Jon unaware. Changes of that kind would have been enough to save Rickon?
Jon lets go his grip around her hand, but Sansa doesn’t abandon his side. The same hand that he has left, she rests it on his arm, trying to comfort him, to remind Jon that she is with him, whatever happens.
He doesn’t look at her. He’s tense and seems to hold his breath as if someone has dealt him a blow treacherously.
Rickon is an open wound, has that effect on both, on Jon in a deeper way.
Sansa saw the body of his brother, cried tears that she believed not to have, the ones that she has vowed will be the last. She refused the help of the other women and accepted only Tormund’s assistance to extract the arrows, causing the least possible damage to the limbs. She cleaned up the blood and mud, she dressed him, brushed the hair and caressed and kissed his forehead, cheeks, recalling the gestures of her mother while the sobs racked her back.
Mother, I failed. I wasn’t even able to save my brother from the clutches of a monster. How can I hope to save our home?
For Jon is different. His pain is different. Jon saw Rickon die before his eyes, and even though the sins to expiate remain the same, for him the responsibility of that blame will always fall entirely on his shoulders. For Jon, as Ser Davos told her, is not and will never be a question of 'if', as in her case. It is not a question of chances, but of truths. In the desperation of both there is a grain of truth and in his, perhaps, more than in hers.
Sansa clears her throat, but her voice is low and choked by an emotion that she cannot disguise. "Thank you, my lord."
"Thank you, my lord," Jon echoes. "Thank you, doubly. What you have done for Sansa is not forgotten."
Tyrion seems taken aback. He eyes her. "There are no thanks to the obligation of duty." I wish I had done more. I wish I would have been able to protect you better, his gaze tells and Sansa wants the same thing. She would like to have allowed him.
"Despite the gratitude that I feel," Jon continues with renewed toughness, "give me a reason why I should treat you according to the rules of hospitality and not make you throw in a cell after you have introduced into our house stealthily."
"I give you two." Tyrion takes up the leading scrip hanging at his side and when Ghost produces a mistrustful snarl, opens his arms and lets the direwolf sniffs him and steps muzzle on his body. Once finished, Tyrion sighs. "Can I go on?" he asks in a deliberately exasperated tone.
After Jon’s nod, Tyrion extracts two letters. He doesn’t give them to him, but to Sansa.
Sansa studies the seals and passes a letter with the three-headed dragon’s sigil to John, taking for herself the one with the kraken. Targaryen and Greyjoy.
What Tyrion’s physical appearance had given way to her to imagine (the familiar brooch on the chest, the exotic clothes), acquires a real and frightening note as she reads Theon’s letter. Three dragons. A woman walking in the fire without getting burned. Mother of a formidable army with wich she plans to march against the usurper who sits on the Iron Throne in King's Landing, with or without allies in the Seven Kingdoms. I owe you this and so much more, Sansa. To you and your family.
When she finishes reading, she tends it to Jon, who doesn’t take it.
Jon has closed his hand into a fist, knuckles white for the force with which he is clutching at nothing.
"Jon?" Sansa calls him, worried. "What is going on?"
“Daenerys Stomborn of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons,” Jon pronounces each title as if he were saying the list of names of the many people who have done a wrong to their family. "This queen, a queen that I still don’t know whether to accept as my queen, commands us to bend the knee or..."
"Or?" she urges him.
"Fire and blood on us and on our home."