Chapter Text
There was someone looking at her across the hall.
He thought she didn’t notice, but she did. She noticed everything now. The blood underneath a warrior’s fingernails. The dirt underneath her own. The stink of the bodies still carrying from the battlefield. The slightly rotted taste of the meat.
Winter was here, and she had little time for pretenses.
Glancing up from her bowl, Sansa Stark met the man’s gaze, her mouth set in a hard and unfeeling line. He looked away almost instantly. Of course he did. Some random bannerman making eyes at the Lady of Winterfell with the King sitting next to her had the potential to be a grave mistake. If Jon had a sharper temperament, then there might have been a brawl. Or at least some hard words exchanged.
He’d become very protective of her these days. There was a part of her that wanted to resist against it. All her life she’s had men telling her what’s best. Shielding her from the world with pretty lies or unrealistic truths. Her father, Littlefinger, Joffrey, Jon. They’ve all lied to her, whether they realized it or not. No one could protect her. Not for long.
The only person she could truly rely on was herself.
But, as that thought hardened itself within her, she recalled something her father said time and time again. The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. She’d been a lone wolf among lions, flowers, falcons. It never ended well. Now she was a wolf among wolves. Bears. Northerners. She didn’t have to carry on by her own strength anymore. She had Jon. A pair of broad shoulders to lean upon should the need arise.
“You all right?” He mumbled in that distinctly Northern way of his. He never enunciated like noble echelons would have wanted him to. Not that it mattered much here, she supposed. In the South, your outward presentation was everything. One false word could have gotten you killed.
Jon wouldn’t last long down there. Just like their father.
Sansa managed the faintest of smiles. At least, for him, it was genuine. Not the false courtier’s smirk she had to wear anywhere else. “Yes, of course. Just…thinking.”
Jon turned in his chair to look at her, hands resting on the table. He had dirt and blood underneath his fingernails. “About?”
“The past,” she answered quietly, her voice almost drowned by the raucous laughter coming from a group of men in a far corner. They drained mug after mug of heavy northern ale, wiping at their beards with meaty hands. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just tired is all.”
Jon made a noise—a grunty Northern noise—and turned back to his mutton. “I’d rather you sleep in the Lord’s chambers. It’s warmer there.”
Sansa had to stop herself from sighing. They’d had this same argument at least ten times in the past fortnight. “I’m not the King,” she said, smashing down the dark feeling rising in her stomach. Winter was here. She hadn’t the time for pretenses. Or jealousy. After all, it was not the throne she wanted. Just a little recognition, which she got. She needed to think about what she had, not what she wanted. “My chambers are perfectly sufficient. You’ve better things to worry about.”
Jon stilled. His throat bobbed as he swallowed his food. “I want to make sure you’re comfortable is all.” He looked at her, sad eyes a shade sadder than usual. “You got us here, Sansa. Not me.”
Yes, she thought bitterly. I did get us here. And what have I gotten for it?
Her home. Safety, however tenuous it might be. Her family. An army. Queen in the North she was not, but Ramsay was dead and Jon would kill anyone who tried to hurt her again. That was enough. It had to be enough. Jealousy had no place among them now. It was what Littlefinger wanted and what Littlefinger wanted, Littlefinger didn’t get to have. Not here.
“Sansa,” Jon said. Something in his voice made her look at him. He leaned toward her, tentatively reaching for her hand as though he wasn’t sure if he should do it or not. “I mean it. None of us could have done this without you.”
She balked at the warmth of his skin. He’d touched her before, yes, but those were in times of desperation. She hadn’t any mind for how she—or anyone else—felt then. All she cared about was getting Winterfell back and killing Ramsay. She’d accomplished both of those things. All that was left was to make sure she stayed alive long enough to see the fruits of her labor.
Made shy by her silence, perhaps, Jon cleared his throat and withdrew his hand. “Just try it for one night. Please. I’ll manage elsewhere.”
There would be no swaying him from his plan, she knew. He was as stubborn as a mule. “Fine,” she said, rising to her feet. A hush fell on the rest of the hall, as it always did when she so much as twitched. A sign of respect she usually associated with queens. It felt a little strange, considering the king in this situation was her brother, but she appreciated it nonetheless.
“Goodnight, Jon,” she said, lowering her volume in accordance with the quiet of the hall. She put a hand on his fur-covered shoulder.
He smiled up at her, tight-lipped. “Goodnight.”
***
A fire was already popping in the hearth when Sansa took up residence in the Lord’s Chambers. She suspected this was Jon’s plan from the start. He more than likely awoke this morning already set on making her stay there. She swore to herself after Ramsay’s death that she’d never let a man force her to do anything again. This, however, was a notable exception.
Undressing down to her shift, she settled at the edge of the grand bed her parents once slept in. That Jon now slept in, that she was now sleeping in, that…that Ramsay once slept in. That monster haunted her waking hours as well as her sleep. Try as she may, she couldn’t fully forget what he did to her. Brutalized her on the inside and the out. Her only regret regarding him was that she sorely wished the dogs had taken longer to eat him.
Stifling a yawn, she banished all thoughts of the bastard Ramsay Bolton from her mind. He’d never hurt her again. She made sure of that.
The door began to creak open. Sansa’s hard-won peace shattered in an instant. Jumping to her feet, she remembered who she was and went to see who called. Maybe Jon forgot something in here and declined to knock. Maybe some drunkard had gotten lost. Maybe—
“Oh,” said a young woman around Sansa’s age, perhaps a year or two older. Her dress was gray and dour blue, matching most of Sansa’s. “I—I’m sorry, my lady. I did not realize you—”
“Who are you?” Sansa asked, not unkindly, though her tone edged on exhaustion. The girl was certainly pretty, with long brown hair and bright blue eyes. What she was doing anywhere near the Lord’s Chambers remained to be seen. Sansa guessed it had something to do with the handsome young King.
The girl clasped her hands together until her knuckles whitened. “No one important, my lady. I had simply thought to ask the King if—…”
“The King is occupied,” Sansa said. By the very loud feast happening not far away. Surely this girl hadn’t missed it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to bed.”
“Of course,” the girl curtseyed. She no doubt had dreams of King’s Landing in her head, just as Sansa once did so many moons ago. “Many apologies for disturbing you, my lady.”
At least this No One Important had the courtesy to shut the door behind her.
As Sansa readied herself for bed for the second time that night, there came a knock. Praying to the old gods and the new for patience she could feel wearing thin, Sansa went to answer it when all she really wanted to do was yell go away like an impetuous child.
It was only Jon.
He made another Northern noise at the sight of her in her shift, eyes cast downward to the floor. “You’re still awake,” he said. His breath smelled strong of ale.
“Do you want your room back?” She didn’t know why else he’d be here so late. Even supper had wound down.
“Ah, no,” Jon shook his head. He would not look at her, but she could still see the ghost of an embarrassed smile on his lips. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, but I—….”
Sansa stared at him. He cared more about the impropriety of seeing her in her underclothes than she did. You ought to care, said a voice in the back of her head. A voice that sounded terribly like Littlefinger’s. He’s your half-brother.
Sometimes she wondered if that was true. When she was younger, she fully bought into her lady mother’s hatred of Jon, thinking him the result of her father’s one-time moral failing. Now that she was older and hopefully wiser, she couldn’t fathom her father straying from her mother. It didn’t make any sense. Why would a man so consumed with his own honor do something like sire a bastard, then bring said bastard home to rub in his wife’s face?
Furthermore, Jon’s coloring was so unlike her own. So unlike Robb’s or Rickon’s or Bran’s or Arya’s. He looked more Baratheon than Stark.
Robert Baratheon, that is. Not any of the golden-haired ones.
“Jon?” Sansa prompted. He grew very quiet.
“It’s nothing,” he decided suddenly. “I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”
He was off down the corridor before she had the chance to tell him about his visitor.
That night, Sansa Stark dreamed of snow.