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bulletandsophia · 8 years ago

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One Night, One Morning (3)

part one | part two | read it in AO3

xi .

The smooth feel of the silk in his hand does not belong here, Jon decides.

As well as the memories that flood his mind as he keeps hold of the thin material; for the silk reminds him only of the sweet kind of comfort that floats and fights its way around the dark snowy cliffs. Directionless—swirling around and just weightless—as if only to envelope him with the faintest traces of her memories, her touch, her scent, the vision of her red hair.

Jon holds the favor tightly as another gush of cold wind brushes past, threatening to distinguish the small bonfire. Behind him, he hears the tent flap noisily.

It is almost the time of the wolf, the moon high up above, barely even visible behind the cloudy skies, and yet, he finds no sleep.

They’ve seen the ice dragon yesterday, also barely escaping its wrath and of the first wave of the Night King’s army with luck to only take credit when they were able to get away. The Gift is vast enough to give a wide berth from where they’ve attacked the enemy but it is flat and open, disabling the Northern army and those pledged to their cause the advantage of hills and mountains that could act as their initial defensive shield.

Brothers from the Watch now traverse the northwest, as Edd’s last letter states. Eastwatch has crumbled and with them on the journey to Winterfell are those that almost perished too at the onslaught of the Night King—Tormund and some wildlings, Beric Dondarrion and his men.

The battle is lost. The dead has come.

But Jon does not want to believe it. Jon does not want to think that it is over for even while around him the certain hopelessness devours the camp wholly, he knows he cannot stop fighting. Not now when his lost purpose is once again glaring so brightly at him—in the forms and figures of his siblings, in the lovely face of Sansa who is waiting for him back in Winterfell. Jon does not know if he can ever find the will to stop now.

The crunch of boots on snow disrupts his thoughts.

“May I, your grace?”

Jon looks up to the tall figure of the Kingslayer, clad in black and brown leather and cloak and with no trace of any Lannister colors except for his golden hand and golden hair. Jon studies him carefully, knowing fully that on the night he arrived at Winterfell, his first request was to see Sansa and then his first act was to swear as her shield. He could not comprehend why the Kingslayer was here in the far North rather than in Winterfell but Jon can only guess that Sansa would rather he—Jon—is armed with all the men who can fight with him on the Wall rather than let those qualified simply stand guard outside her chambers.

Jaime quirks an eyebrow at his now lengthy stare so Jon finally nods, despite his quiet hesitations.

The golden-haired knight sits on the nearby boulder and offers a leather flask of ale but Jon shakes his head and refuses, deciding that he needs his head clear if all of his men are getting warm—and drunk��on this night. They’re both quiet with only the continuous bellowing of the wind and the hurried crackles of the fire. Jamie sips on his flask once in a while.

The night has not compelled him to, for it should bother on far greater and more threatening thoughts, but Jon can’t help but feel the slight irony of the situation.

Jamie Lannister was once the arrogant Kingsguard who has mocked him in the courtyard of Winterfell all those years ago, japing at his desire to serve the Night’s Watch. But then here, in the middle of the frozen flat lands, both cold and hungry and tired, with no titles and thrones to save their pride, he merely becomes the silhouette of a disgraced and fallen golden boy of the South, fighting alongside the most rugged of men against enemies Tywin Lannister could not and would not even dream of fighting and winning against.

He serves me now, Jon thinks. Pledging his allegiance to my cause.

His presence amongst the Northernmen is still a discerning reality despite the doomed situation. But Jaime’s desperation is oozing and palpable. His only hope for redemption is this pledge to fight against the dead.

Honor, Jon realizes once again, can make a man move mountains if he so chooses to do so, in its name.

Jon glances at the Kingslayer who pensively stares at the fire.

He chose to serve the North, the words flood his mind easily, peculiarly feeling like some sort of a betrayal.

He chose to serve Sansa. If I perish here, she’d still have him. They could run South if all else fails. He could deliver Sansa to safety in the Riverlands. She would be safer with him.

Then worse, He could do for her what I cannot.

At this moment, where his certain weakness takes over, even that thought of Sansa in the far South and away from the cold is not comforting. His selfishness and idiocy only overpowers any other logical thought. It only prods and awaken a darkness in him that wants to sate this certain and intense jealousy in the idea of the Kingslayer fulfilling the image of dawn over at Winterfell, suddenly obliterating any other need to firstly ensure the safety of the woman he loves.

Then, the sour memory of Alliser Thorne right before Jon submits him to his death flashes in his mind, like an old wound—or a curse.

You would be fighting their battles forever.

Instantly, Jon feels that any which way, he is never going to win in any of it.

“Have you always been this broody?”

Jon squints as he hears the words. The certain irritation bubbles in his chest and finds the blonde man frowning curiously at him.

“I mean, really?” Jamie continues in a lighter, teasing voice. “I’ve seen that look on you all those years ago in Winterfell and to find you still looking exactly like that boy, it’s unnerving to be quite honest with you.”

Jon grimaces and shakes his head. “The way I look—or my disposition, for that matter—is not something that greatly concerns me.”

“Not the way it concerns the Queen, I’m sure.”

“The Dragon Queen can—“

“I’m talking about Sansa, of course.” Jaime cuts him off and raises an eyebrow. “Your Queen in the North?”

Surprised, Jon stares at the Kingslayer.

“That is her favor you are holding, is it not?” he points to the silky cloth Jon is indeed still grasping in his hand. “Gray and silvery… with a direwolf emblem on the corner? It surely can’t be the Dragon Queen’s.”

“And it surely is none of your business, Ser.”

Jaime laughs loudly against the wind. “Of course, it’s not. But if only I have not seen Sansa work tirelessly day and night for it, hoping to be able to finish before we leave Winterfell, then I would not even take a second glance at you now.”

The Kingslayer sighs at his silence and then appraises him like he is the biggest idiot in the world.

“Why do you think she sent me here, Jon Snow, if not to look after you? Why do you think she did not allow Brienne of Tarth, a splendid warrior, to fight with us here if not to look after your sister Arya and your brother, Bran? She worries over the lot of you more than I’ve seen Cersei worry about the throne.”

Jaime shakes his head and takes a swig of his ale. Solemnly, he confesses. “I live my life now not only to fight against the dead but mostly, I do it for your sister. I do it as her sworn shield.”

As your last hope for honor, the words rivet again in Jon’s mind.

“I will not force you to believe me or even like me, Snow, as I think you’d rather face the Night King than trust me.”

Jon huffs his agreement.

“But you and I, in time past,” Jaime continues as if unhearing of Jon’s irritation. “We also did not think of these wights as something real. But here we are, both waiting for our deaths from their rotting hands.”

“We do not need to die fighting the Night King and his army.” Jon declares. “I intend to destroy them once and for all.”

For Sansa. For the Stark name.

“Then we are not so much different, your grace.” Jaime nods. “I, too, do intend to return to the safety of your sister in one piece.”

A nerve jumps, his finger twitches, and when Jon stares back at the Kingslayer where the low fire barely lights up his features, he can barely notice the light squint on the knight’s expression—more so, he cannot decipher and see the curiosity in it nor the challenge that awaits to be proven.

Only, the truth has yet to be divulged for in this moment of crises, estranging the Dragon Queen and her armies with his parentage is not the way to win the war. So in this scenario where judgement is another thing Jon fears most, he cannot exactly embody and exercise yet the nature of who he truly is in Sansa’s life the instant chambers doors have closed and fires have been extinguished.

So begrudgingly, Jon draws another point from the Kingslayer’s statement instead.

“Stop calling me ‘your grace’.” he excuses. “I’m no King.”

“Then tell Sansa to ask me to stop calling you that. You are her King, as she so used to remind me daily when you irritate me at council.”

“I’m no King if she is queen—and she is Queen.”

“Then don’t you want to be her King?”

Jon takes a sharp glance at the relentless bouts.

The earlier teasing tone of Jaime’s voice is no longer there albeit the arrogance emanates still quite fully from those wide, knowing green eyes that appear to exactly see right through him. Irritated, Jon feels that Jaime is on a mission to make him admit this one other certain truth that glares even on this dark night; the one in the form of a gray favor he now safely tucks inside his pocket as if it is under threat.

Jon wonders, how long did it take for him to comprehend it all? Was it during those nights after council meetings and he—Jon—insists on leading Sansa back to her chambers? Was it because of those moments he’d uninterestedly pass him by while standing guard at the godswood, almost desperate in his pace, just so he could quickly reach Sansa as she prays at the Heart Tree?

Were it those nights? Those days, those careless glances as she walks the courtyard, the halls? While he sits on the dais and she on the low tables?

For plainly and obviously, Jaime Lannister has already seen exactly a circumstance he knows too well.

But his slight insistence unnerves Jon. Does the Kingslayer see him as threat to Sansa’s rule? Or does he see Jon as a threat to his own intentions?

Jon’s blood boils just at the thought.

A lion and a wolf.

A Stark and a Lannister.

“I can take your disrespect for me, Ser,” he speaks finally, trying his might to keep his voice from shaking and from strangling the knight from his seat. The image of Sansa in the arms of another Lannister swallows Jon fully and he does not want to spend the night with this kind of torment. The wind bellows even harsher as if to reflect his anger. “But you dare to question my loyalty to Sansa—”

But Jaime disregards him instantly like he is some child.

“You think I do not presume you loyal to Sansa?” the knight exclaims in disbelief. “Then, my boy, you are more foolish than I think you are.”

“Aye, I am foolish!” Jon retaliates. “For even acknowledging this conversation with you!”

But Jamie only laughs and shakes his head, turning away and gazing into the darkened night of the frozen flatlands.

“Sansa has warned me about your temper. You easily sway and act rashly upon what your feelings tell you so. Now, I see what she finally means.” Jaime drinks from his flask. And then after another contemplative and empathetic glance, “But like I said, we’re not so much different, your grace.”

There it is again.

Jon tries not to let the words of the man both revered and dishonored, saved merely by the legacy of his manipulative and appalling family name, get to him. And yet even in that thought and aspect, where Jon for a moment sees himself finally greater than the Jaime Lannister—who once upon a time served a king, killed a king, and infamously bedded and loved and cared for his own twin sister—he still realizes grimly that they are indeed (and the truth penetrates deeply he feels some physical pain in it), in the eyes of the realm, not so much different after all.

A bastard. A traitor. A king who sold the North.

A boy who loved his sister.

“There’s no point in fearing anymore, Snow.” Jaime voices as he stares up above the dark clouds. “When death is imminent, when death is a few days—a few minutes from now—will you not be able to find the courage to declare your love for Sansa Stark? Your real love for her, the way a man truly loves a woman?”

Then quirking an eyebrow at him, Jaime releases another. “Tell me, Jon. Would you let death take that chance away from you?”

The blow to his chest this time is harder to take for whatever judgment he holds for the Kingslayer cannot, or will it ever, cover up the truth in what he just uttered for simply and truly, there is not much time. And then instantly, Jon feels the probability of seeing Sansa once again becomes slimmer; it suddenly feels impossible to go back home to her.

Jon fists his hands, restraining himself again despite his screaming and protesting muscles to finally lunge at Jaime for his sudden and very uncalled for reasoning. This panic he’s planting on Jon’s mind is unnecessary in this already cold and desperate night. But just the realization that Jaime Lannister knows the truth—about his feelings, about his fears—weighs Jon down and petrifies him. The ache and the longing he feels for Sansa, the immense gravity of it right in this instant where it hangs completely and carelessly now over his and the Kingslayer’s head, compels Jon to acknowledge it finally.

Fully.

For despite the randomness of the situation and the randomness of the person who has asked him of this truth, Jon knows now that he can never, in any circumstance or judgement, deny his feelings for Sansa any longer.

“You haven’t spoken.” he hears a faint snigger beside him. “It only means I’ve singled out the truth. You do love her.”

Something inside Jon lightens and releases like a sigh, a resignation that indeed Jaime has caught him red handed; as if he has been waiting for this heaviness, this puzzle, to be lifted and to be answered, as if he has been longing for someone to notice, for someone to finally urge him say it because this secret, this overwhelming feeling he has for Sansa that consumes day and night, does not deserve to be hidden and spoken of just like some afterthought. It’s not something he wants to keep for himself anymore, not when nothing else should matter but her and of how he longs to come back to her arms.

So while odd that Jaime Lannister need be the first to hear of this confession apart from Sansa, Jon still states simply and determinedly for there is nothing else that should matter except for this.

“Aye, I do love her. In ways, perhaps, I should not.”

Greatly, wholly, almost sinfully.

But how easy was it to say it finally? How fittingly and how uninhibited it makes him feel? The declaration flows through his every nerve ending then into the winds, echoing and finding its way back to Winterfell like a charging wolf unafraid of any aftermath or repercussion; of how this wolf threatens to overpower creatures that breathe fire. But saying it out loud only makes it even more powerful, makes it even more real.

He loves her.

And the Old Gods help those who’ll make him say it back.

“Good.” Jamie only replies. “I was afraid that you did not. And all that she’s worked hard for—sacrificed for—for you, is all just for naught.”

“You seem to know Sansa well.” Jon cannot help but to bitterly ask, slightly feeling like a child again for the certain jealousy in knowing that Jaime holds Sansa in high regard, as if he admires her, creeps up again.

“No, I don’t.” Jaime shakes his head. “But only a fool would be able to deny what she’s done. And I am no Northern fool. I see the way she looks at you—and you at her.”

He then offers his flask and raises an eyebrow. “And they say the Lannisters are the only wicked ones.”

But we are not wicked ones, Jon so desperately wants to argue as he accepts the flask. We will never be like you or Cersei.

If only he could say it, if only he could say it now and tell the Kingslayer of the truth about Rhaegar and Lyanna, if only he could keep Jaime Lannister from tainting his feelings for Sansa as if a sin in the world, if only he could prove to him now that there is nothing wrong in loving her, Jon would do it. He would do say it. But Sansa’s last solemn reminder back in her chambers as they bid their farewells run through his head like some chant.

Patience, he remembers. Patience, patience.

“How easy would it be if you have fallen in love with Daenerys Targaryen instead?” Jaime then asks. “You’ll have her dragons, you’ll have her army, you can wed peacefully, lawfully… combine the North and the South—“

Jon disregards whatever else Jaime is saying for it is only another tempting opportunity to correct his words and tell him how far worse it is to marry the dragon queen; of how his parentage eliminates entirely all the advantages of a union with her for in the first place, everything that she claims is already rightfully his. But in this instance where Jon cannot entirely blame and contend further with Jaime’s reasonable case where it is based solely on the version of the truth that the realm acknowledges, deep in his heart, he knows that not even his lineage becomes his biggest argument against that scenario. For even without the Targaryen blood that flows through his veins, there’s only this one unquestionable fact that remains to him.

For simply, in whatever world or circumstance, the dragon queen can never be Sansa Stark.

Not in temperament, not in her silver hair, not in her jealous wrath that threatens to extinguish her kind heart.

“It does not matter,” Jon only says then. “I am willing to accept whatever and however little my situation with Sansa allows.”

“How noble.”

“You speak as if you’ve never lived your life the same way.”

Jaime laughs and shakes his head, looking as if thousands and thousands of regrets flash in his head in that instant. Faintly, he only says, “But no, your grace. I never lived that way.”

Jon swirls the flask. “It’s never too late.”

“Is it?” then Jaime rubs a hand over his face. “I’ve done horrible things.”

“I know.” Then Jon gives back the ale without taking a sip. “But you’re here, aren’t you? You chose to leave Cersei, the woman that you love, only to ally with her enemies.”

Then after, “Would you not consider that to be the noblest thing?”

Jaime turns to look at him with a new wonder on his face as if Jon barely comprehends the situation again. “I’ve never said I still loved Cersei, your grace. I did not turn north to spite her.”

“Then why do it?”

With a small smile, Jaime holds Widow’s Wail’s pommel so similar to its sister sword.

“I’ve found a new purpose.”

xii.

The darkness envelopes the keep and yet the flow of men, women, and children entering the gates of Winterfell carry on like a procession.

We can’t keep them all, Sansa fears as she continues to watch. Winterfell is starving now as it is, with some of the granaries and produce packed and wheeled with the army to go North. She cannot fathom how else they can feed the people looking for shelter. But Sansa knows they could not turn them away.

She turns her view from the window and strides her chambers to the small desk. There in the middle sits a scroll that arrived not too long ago. Sansa even thinks she could smell the salty seas in it. She takes the letter. Wax torn hastily, its roll blocking the faint words and the visible water blotches; the seal is evident, the seal was unexpected.

She reads the letter again.

… this finds you before winter comes. I have discovered of The Golden Company sailing to Westeros in the name of Cersei Lannister…

... I would rather fight alongside you but the threat from the South lingers... I need to find my sister.

... I will come back to you and Jon soon.

Sansa clenches the parchment again and deeply sighs, fondly reading the lone signature at the bottom of the letter. No claims, no titles. Just a name.

Theon.

“Do you think he’d really return?” someone says behind her.

Sansa watches as Arya enters her room and sits lazily on her bed. She doesn’t speak, only watching too as Sansa places the letter back on the desk.

“Why haven’t you returned to the Lady’s chambers?” but Arya then randomly asks. “The Targaryen Queen is gone.”

Sansa turns away and then back to the window to view the still oncoming people. Arya’s question floats in between them for it’s true, she could have retreated back to the chamber that is already rightfully hers to begin with. But while it is comforting to realize the notion of the Targaryen Queen gone from the keep, it cannot eliminate the fact that somewhere and sometime in that room, she has branded Jon to be hers.

Their quiet truce that night in the Great Hall cannot disintegrate that past scenario, even. Sansa thinks herself foolish for in a way, Daenerys has already seen and recognized her loss in that aspect of battle—that truly, Jon belongs to the North, to Sansa—and yet, the remnants of her passions with him seems palpable enough to let Sansa feel wretched in just the simple thought of going inside the Lady’s chamber and sleep on the bed where they have once—many times?—have coupled.

She does have the strength to face it yet.

“Do you want to burn it?”

Sansa turns to Arya, now lying on the bed comfortably and staring at the canopy, looking almost lethargic.

“What?” Sansa asks absently.

“The bed.” her little sister shrugs and then glances at her. “In the Lady’s chambers. Do you want to burn it?”

Sansa frowns for surely, she cannot mean that. Arya cannot read her thoughts exactly for while things have changed and they were not those once innocent children of Ned Stark but instead, they are daughters shaped and molded by the unfairness of their world, Arya can’t still know that.

But she sits up and stares at Sansa—that languid, almost visceral look she wears now—and insists.

“We could burn it. Then you can go back to the Lady’s chambers.”

“Maybe I want to stay in these chambers.”

“No.” Then slowly, Arya’s little face contorts in some form of disgust. “This is where he hurt you.”

Sansa stiffens for that is another pain she keeps for herself despite almost everyone in the keep knowing this truth. When the dragon queen had settled in the Lady's chambers and Sansa has once again had to endure the pain, they all kept quiet—because that was what she did. But at this moment, she can even hear now from her memories the hounds barking and growling in the courtyard; then of his hot breath on her neck, his heavy weight on her body, his sharp knives on her skin.

She doesn’t respond only when she feels Arya standing beside her, looking out the window, does Sansa realizes she was holding her breath.

She exhales loudly.

“I can burn it for you, the bed. I know it’s mother and father’s but you and Jon are not mother and father anyway. We can have someone build a new bed, sew new furs…”

Sansa’s breath hitches as she glances down.

“Arya…”

Her sister is looking faraway to the darkened and frozen fields that surround the keep. Her expression is unfathomable but the shock of her words still seeps in on Sansa.

“Do you remember when I told you about my time in Braavos?” Arya speaks again. “About what I can do? It terrifies you, I know, and I am sorry. But you’ve already seen my work, didn’t you? All those faces under my bed?”

“You don’t need to explain any more than you already have, Arya. We can deal with our pain the way we know—“

“No, no.” Arya shakes her head and looks at her. “You misunderstand me, Sansa. Wearing their faces is only just one of the things I had to learn. Because even before I could even get to do that, I have to master the first step in the process.”

Sansa shudders even now, at hearing again of Arya’s time with the Faceless Men, of this process. It almost seems surreal despite their situation, despite the existence of dragons and undead mean. Surreal simply because it is Arya who dwells in the act. It is Arya, her sister Arya, who becomes the mystery herself.

“The first step,” Arya turns away again, almost nonchalant to Sansa’s obvious struggle, and stares back to view the courtyard. “… is to observe.”

Sansa takes a deep breath and closes her eyes upon hearing the word, feeling its weight rest on her shoulders for surely, Arya uttered it so purposefully. They don’t speak for a while, as if letting the word simmer, letting it make sense of all the other unexplainable things that has happened since Jon returned from the South—since Jon stood dead center in this very chamber on that fateful night and waited for her; since he lovingly kissed her—and as she kissed him back just as much.

“I see you,” Arya whispers then. Her back straight, her hands resting on the window pane, her eyes still glued to the vast, blank darkness. “I see you—and I see him.”

Then she turns to look at Sansa. And while Sansa expects an expression angry and disappointed, disgusted and appalled, when Arya faces her, Sansa can only see her gray eyes blank and confused.

“I thought I knew things.” Arya mutters. “I thought I’ve seen worse things.”

Sansa’s chest heaves.

“But this… whatever this is with you and Jon.” she shakes her head. “…I do not understand it.”

Sansa feels her lips tremble and the tears threaten to roll from her eyes. The pain is familiar but it is nevertheless still sharp and unyielding.

“I thought you hated him,” Arya continues. “Then to see you now so tender, so caring… and to see him react the same way… it makes me feel… betrayed.”

“Arya,”

“Have you both forgotten about me, Sansa?”

“Arya, no—!”

“Or Bran?”

“Please stop, Arya—”

“What do you think Robb would say?”

Sansa shakes and sobs. She leans unto the window and receives Arya’s words agonizingly, blow by blow, like some arrow; like a whip that slashes through her skin.

“And mother, Sansa!” Arya now shouts, “What would she say? How would Catelyn Stark fathom the thought of her precious, darling Sansa in the arms of Jon Snow—“

“That’s enough, Arya.”

A solemn voice interrupts Arya’s tirade. Sansa turns to see Bran by the door, wheeled by Brienne who is looking down, unable to meet any of the Stark children’s gaze.

Has she heard everything?

Sansa feels shame building inside her chest for while she and Jon can be unbothered to their selfishness against Daenerys, were they too careless to have not even considered how their siblings would feel? It is difficult to comprehend, the complexity of this scenario where she and Jon are able to see and care for Arya and Bran in that same familial manner and yet see each other in an entirely different way.

Have the horrors of the past consumed only to spit them back to become the monsters they are now?

“Just tell me,” Arya almost pleads, her voice shaking. “Tell me how did this happen? Tell me how!”

Sansa feels another tear roll down her cheek and shakes her head.

“I don’t know.” she faintly whispers. “I don’t know, Arya.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t!” Sansa retaliates. But then she cowers, feeling weak for there is no other explanation only that it happened; that it is happening. “I don’t know… I don’t know why I feel this way the same way I don’t know why father had to die. Why Robb, why mother, why Rickon. Do you not think I do not wonder? When perhaps, it should have been me below the grave. It should have been me dead long ago.

“But I am here,” she shudders. “And so is Jon—and maybe this is the work of the gods to further torment me or punish me but it is right here, consuming me day and night for I do, Arya. I love him.”

Arya grimaces but Sansa lets on, unable now to stop.

“Do you not think that Jon and I did not struggle with our demons long before we knew of the truth? Do you not think we didn’t see this as wrong and terrifying? Because we did. We both tried to get away but where else is there to go? Who else is there? In all those moments that I deny Jon, I knew I was only lying to myself.

“For so long, I believed this simply must be the consequences of my mistakes when we were younger. To finally love a man truly but only, he is kin—your brother still. In the darkest of days, I even feel as if it is the filth of Ramsey Bolton that has grown in me that made me this way; that maybe this is all because I do not anymore deserve any great form of love, not in the rightful ways it should have grown. Only it has to be twisted, that it has to be revolting to most.

“But Arya,” Sansa now asks despairingly. “Is it truly wrong to love Jon? Do I truly not deserve him? In this world where we’ve dealt with so much and gained almost nothing at all, can I not have this one reprieve to freely love him now that he is not my brother?

“He is good and he is kind. He is all those that I remember dreaming about when we were little girls. I know we are not those people anymore and how foolish of me to even think it possible. But it is also exactly in those reasons that I find strength in truthfully voicing what I feel for him for we are not those children anymore. It breaks my heart to know that this displeases you but I will not argue. You are my sister and I love you and I will not lie to you. But I want you to know that there is no longer a path where I see Jon the way that you see him. You can tell me that I should not proclaim this to the world but I beg you not to tell me to stop loving him for I cannot bear it.

“Arya,” Sansa now moves closer, her tears blinding but she wills herself to say it, this one last salvation. “Arya, I will not survive it.”

But Arya only stares at her, unblinking as if in a trance, as if she is unseeing her.

Does she hate me? Can she truly hate me because of this?

The silence consumes the room and Sansa more than anything else just wants to have Arya in her arms and assure her, beg her forgiveness, her approval—anything and everything if only to stop her from looking at her as if she is a stranger.

Sansa takes another step but Arya moves away.

“I need to go,” she whispers hurriedly, taking her glance away from Sansa then strides the room and out to the hallway, passing by the stoic figures of Bran and Brienne.

“Let her,” says Bran. “Running away is her only method to cope.”

But Sansa is looking now too at her honorable knight, realizing finally of all the secrets she has divulged for her ears to hear. Sansa knows Arya can take it, but Brienne, noble Brienne. What does she think now?

“My lady,” Sansa murmurs. But the knight cuts her off.

“My duty is to protect you and your siblings, Sansa.” Brienne explains, standing taller, as if truly unbothered. “Whatever I have learned in this room shall stay with me to the grave.”

Sansa nods and offers a small, appreciative smile. She knows this is far from over and that soon, Brienne would have her own questions. But the only other person that truly matters in this moment of revelation remains seated stoically in his chair. She turns to him then, to the young boy she so desperately still tries to think of as the young child who once loved to climb walls and towers. Sansa knows that person is now long gone, like her own old self. But a moment of pretend would not hurt her any more than the rest of the world had already done so.

So, she imagines him the way she fondly remembers that little boy.

“And you, Bran?” Sansa whispers then softly, timidly. “Do you hate me too?”

He is passive, with barely a shift on his feature to reveal what he truly feels; not on his brows, or lips, or his eyes that seem thousands of years older than he truly is.

“No,” he croaks. “I do not hate you, Sansa.”

The relief does not come.

But for now, Sansa hopes Bran’s words would be enough.

part one | part 2 | read it in AO3

#jonsa #actuallyjonsa #jonsafic #mine #one night one morning #jonsa fanfiction #jon x sansa #jon and sansa

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