Chapter Text
“…the truth about Robb, whom I betrayed?”
Silence hung heavy in the air as he paused to let that sink in.
“When you take the black, all your crimes are forgiven.”
“I don’t want to be forgiven.” His voice was stronger than she’d ever heard it. Not Reek’s voice, but not Theon’s voice either. “I can never make amends to your family for the things I’ve done.” He looked towards Lady Brienne and her squire. “They’ll keep you safer than I ever could.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Her voice tremored.
“I would have taken you all the way to the Wall.” For the first time since they’d been saved by Lady Brienne, he met her gaze and held it. “I would have died to get you there.”
I know you would.
“May I take one of the horses?”
“No.”
His eyes flickered away from hers again, the way they had for months at Winterfell. “’M sorry,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have presumed…”
“No,” she repeated, “because I don’t give you permission to leave me.” She took hold of his hands because she could feel him pulling away. He thought she meant to make him walk wherever it was he planned on going. “I don’t give you permission to leave me on my own.”
“But you have—”
She silenced him with one of her gloved hands against his cheek. “I need you, Theon. Please stay.”
He nodded and slowly lifted his eyes to meet hers again. “Of course, m’Lady.”
***
The days were getting shorter, but they traveled for as long as they could. It meant getting up as soon as there was light. Brienne would wake her up and usher her to get ready for the day, with only tiny tendrils of light filtering through the barren trees.
Despite the length of the nights, Sansa hardly slept at all. She knew Theon didn’t either because she could hear him thrashing about. During the day, he rode with Podrick, and whenever she glanced over her shoulder—she and Brienne rode up ahead—she could see him nodding off.
Finally, on the third day of travel, he must have finally fallen asleep, because he slipped from the horse. His body made no sound as it hit the snow. Only Podrick’s startled cry of, “My Lady, wait!” caused them to look back. Brienne sighed, as if she were used to this sort of thing, and circled the horse back around.
Podrick scrambled from his horse and hurried to help Theon to his feet. “I’m sorry,” Theon murmured. “It won’t happen again.”
“Pod,” Brienne instructed, “have Lord Greyjoy sit in front of you.”
“Yes, Ser,” Podrick replied, then hastily added, “Lady! Sorry!”
As he guided Theon back to the horse, Sansa tapped Brienne’s shoulder. “Would it be alright if I ride with him for a bit?”
Brienne cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her. “My Lady, are you certain?” Her tone also said, “Are you able?”
Sansa nodded yes to both accounts. “I’m the one who begged him to stay. He’s my responsibility.”
“With all due respect, my Lady, he doesn’t need to be your responsibility. Pod may be a bit…” She shrugged, as if the appropriate word eluded her at a moment. “But he will take care of him. I assure you.”
“All the same…”
Brienne tilted her head forward. “It’s not my place to question your wishes, my Lady. Pod!” she snapped. “You’re riding with me today. Help Lady Sansa and Lord Greyjoy onto your horse.”
They set out again, plodding through the snow. Theon shuddered uncontrollably in her lap, and she placed a hand on his back, trying to rub some warmth into him, just as he’d done for her when they’d huddled together under the tree stump.
“Sorry, m’Lady,” he said for what had to be the twentieth time.
“Don’t you ever get tired of apologizing?”
“I have a lot of apologize for.”
Sansa fiddled with the reins as she contemplated what to say. She wasn’t used to being given any sort of control, even just over a horse. He felt so small, like a helpless child in her arms, and it frightened her. Was this how he’d felt when she’d begged him for help: Please don’t ask me to take care of you, I can barely take care of myself.
“I’ve spent the last four years of my life apologizing,” she began slowly. “Ever since I left Winterfell. Ever since Father…” She bit her lip. It was beyond chapped, but the pain was good. This kind of pain she could handle. “First I had to apologize to Cersei for being the daughter of a traitor, then I had to apologize to Joffrey and the court for being the sister of a rebel. I had to apologize to Petyr for being a stupid little girl, and I had to apologize to Aunt Lysa for coming between her and her new husband. And always, always I had to apologize for being a Stark, for being Sansa Stark.”
She brushed a tear from her eye. In truth, her eyes and cheeks were so dry and painful, she couldn’t even tell if she was crying at all, but it felt like she might be.
“Do you know,” she continued, “I thought about you sometimes, Theon?” His entire body stiffened, just a moment. “When I was being held captive by the Lannisters, when I had to constantly bow and scrape and apologize for being a ‘traitor’s seed’? Sometimes I looked back at our time together in Winterfell, and it always seemed fine to me. But I was a child. I didn’t understand what it meant, to have your blood used against you.”
He was silent, but his breathing was ragged.
“Theon…?”
“With all due respect, m’Lady, I don’t think it’s fair to compare our circumstances. Your family was never cruel to me.”
She was glad to hear it, even after everything. She hated to think that Theon had been suffering at her family’s hands the way she had suffered at Joffrey’s.
“You did what you had to do,” he continued. “You acted the proper Lady, you saved your neck. I acted the proper twat, because I could. Because nothing I did mattered, one way or the other. Nothing I said could speed up or slow down my fate.” He hugged himself, curling in tight. She wished she could see his face. “With Ramsay it was another matter. I always had to apologize to him, for doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing.”
“Like it was with Joffrey,” Sansa murmured. “It’s funny how our situations were reversed, wasn’t it? I never apologized to Ramsay. Like you said, nothing I did would have mattered.”
“I’m sorry,” Theon said. “I’m so sorry any of this has happened to you. You didn’t deserve it.”
“And you did?”
He was quiet, as if the obvious didn’t need to be said.
“You didn’t deserve it, Theon.”
“Would you say the same if I had killed Bran and Rickon?”
Honestly, she couldn’t say. She’d been horrified by what he’d become, even before the truth of her brothers had come out. And when she threatened to do worse to him for his cowardice, she’d meant every word. In her mind, at least. She’d hated him. She’d wanted to hurt him, because she couldn’t hurt Ramsay. Or Petyr. How was it that a few weeks had allowed her to find sympathy for him under all her hate?
She was tired of trying to justify herself, even in her own thoughts. Something had changed between them when they’d leapt from the ramparts. She didn’t need to analyze it or explain it away. She didn’t need to apologize for it.
“You said that you don’t want to be forgiven,” she said. “That’s fine, I can understand that. When we get to the Wall, you don’t have to join the Night’s Watch.”
“Jon will have me killed.”
“He won’t. Because you’ll be serving me. As a member of my Queensguard.”
He grew very still as he contemplated her words. “Queensguard.”
“Queen in the North. Wardeness, whatever they wish to call me. Brienne will be captain of the guard, obviously, but they will also know that Ser Theon is my close personal advisor.”
“Ser…?”
She leaned forward to better whisper in his ear. “I name you Ser Theon. If you wish,” she added. She did not wish to force yet another name onto him.
“I only wish to serve you,” he replied. “If you feel that serving as your knight is the best way, I will do it, gladly. Though I am not much of a warrior anymore…” He flexed his right hand, the one with the missing finger. “If I ever was one.”
She reached around him and put her hand on top of his. “There are other ways for a knight to serve his Queen than by taking up a sword.”
“I wish to serve you,” he said again, his voice trembling, “more than anything. I don’t…understand how you think I could, but anything you ask of me…I’ll do it.”
“That’s not what I want from you, Theon.” She tightened her grip. “I don’t want you to serve me unquestioningly, the way you did…” She trailed off, because it seemed monstrous to say that Theon’s enslavement had been serving Ramsay. “I wasn’t lying before. I need you. I want you with me, going forward.”
His voice, when next he spoke, was small and plaintive. “But why?”
“Why do you want to serve me?”
“Because you deserve better than you’ve gotten, m’Lady. Because I wish to protect you. Because I would see you happy again.”
“You did not mention the name ‘Stark’ anywhere in there,” she said. “Nor Winterfell, nor Warden nor King nor Queen.”
“I’m sorry, m’Lady! I didn’t—”
“That is why I would have you serve me,” she smirked. “That is why I would have you by my side.”
He murmured something.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear.” She leaned in closer, her chest pressed against his back.
“I promise to serve you,” he said, louder this time, but still hardly above a whisper. “Now and always.”