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They were never close.
Growing up, when he'd come over to their house to hang with Robb and the kids in the basement, playing stupid video games, while she sat in her room - he guesses- singing or practising her calligraphy.
She likes the arts, crafts one could develop over time. He knew this because he'd often heard her father call her down the stairs, over and over again until she'd come waltzing down with ink all over her hands. Ned would smile it off with a shake of his head, and Arya would make a comment on how 'useless' of a pastime it was.
He'd learnt of her passions when he'd been the one to pick her up one Sunday night from her friend's house and she'd sang to virtually every song that played on the damn radio. And he'd smiled, and she'd blushed, and he'd foolishly kissed her before she slipped out of reach.
He'd learnt of her passions when she'd had a gig at a local spot and invited him - and none of her siblings - and had kissed him when he'd clapped louder than anybody else there, claiming he was enchanted, entranced.
She likes the arts because she likes to express herself, glee through singing, and anger through calligraphy.
He knows this because she wrote him a beautifully scripted but cowardly written break-up letter on the eve of their first anniversary.
He understood. She was twenty, didn't want to be tied down. It wasn't like he proposed or anything. But they were serious - as much as they could have been - and he was twenty-three and moving up the social ladder. She probably expected him to want to settle down, and took an easy way out of that potentiality.
He understood, nodded when he received her letter and nodded when he read it, and they parted amicably.
It thad taken them longer to get together in the first place than it had for them to part.
He knows he had been her first everything. Crush, kiss, fuck. He knows this much, and loves her even more for it. It's foolish, selfish maybe.
They weren't ready for what could've been so they decided to settle for what could be instead.
He'd had a girlfriend for awhile. She was a little wild, had curly hair a little redder than Sansa's. But it didn't last because she was wild and free and youthful and he was an old soul.
Sansa was probably right all along. He wanted more and didn't even know it. She was usually right.
She'd been dating some college senior called Harry for a couple months. The guy was easy on the eye, easy-going, and a complete spin on Jon. Their only shared quality being the 'pretty' factor.
Robb didn't like the guy, for reasons unknown, and made it known every possible chance he got. Jon sometimes thinks he probably preferred it when his best friend was the one shacking up with his little sister, no matter how strange it seemed. Jon sometimes finds that Robb drops hints, suggestions.
But Jon stays out of her life, for the most part, and he definitely avoids intruding on her love life. It isn't his place. He isn't hers, and she isn't his anymore (if she ever even had been in the first place).
But, despite himself, despite his attempts to move on, he is still hers. Only she doesn't know it, and he's too proud to admit it aloud.
"Is she-" There's a pause, and Sansa's mother Catelyn takes a moment to breathe, to raise a shaking hand up to her mouth and sigh, "Is she going to be okay, though? In the long run?"
Harry was easy-going until he got drunk and got angry and drove a car carrying Jon's fucking heart and soul.
"She's stable."
"And she'll remember us?""
The tension is heavy, thick, in the room as the doctor answers their questions and leaves, apologetic and telling then to remain hopeful.
How is he supposed to be hopeful when she is lying bruised and battered and wrecked on a hospital bed? How is he supposed to accept apologies from anybody other than man who was driving and died upon impact?
How is he supposed to deal with the realisation that she may not even know him, or know of their history?
It's worse, he thinks, the fact that may not remember a single moment of their romantic relationship.
It'd be easier for him to accept that she doesn't know him at all. It'd be easier to pretend she never met him, never knew him, never loved him in that way. It'd be easier, he knows - despite the crushing feeling on his chest - because she wouldn't think of him nothing more than her brother's friend.
The only problem is that he wants her, all of her, memory and all.
Catelyn and Ned see her first, her mother all teary-eyed and her father all gruff and melancholic.
Robb follows with Arya, when her parents have come out of her room in tears, and they take Bran and Rickon, the youngest kids, to get some snacks from the crappy cafeteria.
He isn't told anything, isn't warned before he goes in her room. It's only family allowed, but Robb tells a nurse that Jon is their cousin - he may as well be - and Jon feels sick.
He is family, just not who she expects him to be.
"Do I know you?"
It's snowing heavily outside, all melting white dust and sticky sprinkles, and her voice is rough, tough.
The door behind him shuts silently, and his hands slide into his black jeans' pockets because he isn't sure what else to do with them.
"Aye."
He nods, once for himself, twice to her.
She is blue and ivory, steel almost. She is scraped in dried blood and he has never felt worse. It's selfish and he hates it.
"You do. Did Robb-?"
Her head shakes, as much as the bruising and wiring and bandaging will allow, and she licks her dry lips, sates them delicately.
"He told me someone wanted to see me." Her eyes flicker to his lips, to his chest, to his boots, before finding his eyes again. She tries a smile, nips at her bottom lip as a soft brow raises.
He can see her fingers twitching, all curious and nervous and he can't blame her. Her black polish is all chipped, her pale fingers all purple.
It's easier this way, for her to have no recollection of him at all.
His heart breaks faster, and he is ripping off the bandaid with a single beat instead of scratching it off, thread by thread.
"Have you ever seen me before?"
"No." Her eyes crinkle and she licks her lips again. There's a reddening to her cheeks and Jon is confused. She doesn't know him, doesn't know what they've done. "I'd remember your face."
"Would you?"
"Do you," Jon clears his throat, runs a hand through his disheveled, messy locks as he approaches the window, keeps a few feet away from the side of the bed, "want to know who I am?"
"Will I like you?"
"You're talking to me now, aren't 'ya?"
"In car you didn't notice, I'm bed-ridden." She taps her index and middle fingers, tries another smile. It works, and it's brighter than the last. "Will I like you?"
She repeats her question, and Jon is staring out the window. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would will her eyes at the wonder of it. Sansa loves snow, and winter, and Sansa loved Snow.
"You did."
"Who are you?"
"I'm a guy who thinks you're the love of his life."
She gasps, and he can't blame her.
Her steel face crumbles softly, and her auburn hair tussles as she tosses and turns as time passes and she cannot think of a reply. It's awkward, and he is to blame, and he knows it. It's strange, to be near her and look at her and love her and have to face the facts; she doesn't love you, she doesn't even know who the hell you are.
"And are you the love of my life?"
He gasps, and he hates himself for it.
"Would you like to find out?"