I have this story published elsewhere, but I thought I'd see how it was received here. If it's not, I'll just pull it and keep posting elsewhere.

Chapter One

"Are you excited to see your brother again?" Catelyn Stark asked her daughter over breakfast that morning.

Sansa finished taking a sip of her orange juice and shrugged. She put her glass down and tossed some of her auburn hair over her shoulder. "Sure." She knew that response was lacking any enthusiasm, but she felt as though she didn't really know her older brother (by two years) much anymore despite how everyone told her that she and Robb had been very close pre-accident. The accident that had stolen most of her memories.

"I'm excited," Bran, her younger brother said.

"Me too," Arya chimed in.

"I am too," Rickon said, even though he remembered even less than Sansa being that he'd been all of ten when Robb had left.

Sansa didn't say anything mainly because she didn't know what to say. Robb leaving hadn't affected her that much since she'd had so many gaps in her memory at the time. She remembered Robb now, but some things were still hazy as he hadn't been there to fill in the blanks. He almost felt like a ghost to her.

Actually, her whole family had been a bit of a mystery to her at the time. The accident had done a doozy all right. She didn't know how many times she'd heard she was lucky to be alive. Robb, too. There had been someone else as well, some asshole named Joffrey that had ended up crippled after he'd run her and Robb off the road. Apparently, Joffrey had been her boyfriend at the time and he'd smacked her around.

This is what she'd been told anyway. Sansa didn't remember any part of the accident. She didn't even remember Joffrey. Whatever she could see play out in her head when she thought of it, she was sure it was just because the story of it had snuck into her subconscious after being told what happened so many times.

"I know it's been five years, but I still can't believe he left us," Arya said. She'd been sixteen when Robb had left.

"He didn't leave us," Catelyn said. "He's been busy figuring his life out."

"Did he not have it figured out while he was here?" Bran asked. He'd been fourteen at the time.

Catelyn looked like she was considering this. "Not really. He was floundering. He had no goals. No ambition beyond working as a library clerk."

Something niggled at the back of Sansa's mind as she tried to remember more clearly that time in all their lives. He'd been waiting for me to finish high school, she thought. He wanted us to go away together. Was that right though? She wasn't sure. So, she said nothing.

"Sansa? You all right, dear?"

Sansa looked at her mother's worried blue eyes – blue eyes that were much like hers (minus the worry)—and smiled. "I'm fine, Mom."

"You went away for a minute," Catelyn said.

Sansa shrugged. "I'm here. I was thinking that I needed to go to the library for a while actually. I have a paper to work on."

Catelyn smiled. "Just be back for your brother. He's due to arrive around four."

Sansa nodded and pushed her chair back. She stood and grabbed her breakfast dishes. "Sure thing."

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Sansa cursed under her breath when she saw the black sports car in the driveway that had to be Robb's. She was late, by at least an hour. She'd lost track of time while surfing journal articles for her child psychology class for her paper. Then her friend Jon had caught up with her, doing research for his own paper and they'd got to talking for a couple hours.

When Sansa had left the library, she'd had a dozen texts from her mother, Bran, and Arya. All of them wondering where she was. Robb was there, they'd all said. Robb was home and wanted to see her. Robb was home. Robb was home. Robb was home. Since her brother had announced he was coming home two months ago, that was all Sansa heard about. Her mother had gone nuts preparing the finished basement for him and turning it into a mini-apartment. Sansa wasn't sure why Robb just couldn't have had his old bedroom. Sure his room had changed into a guest room then into the catch-all of crap that no one wanted to find a home for. All they'd needed to do was clean it out and he could have had his old room. But no, instead he got a whole new room in the basement.

She felt bad for feeling almost ambivalent about his return. She found it odd, too, that she should be nervous about seeing him at the same time.

She slung her purse and computer bag over her shoulder and pulled her hair out from under the straps as she hurried up the path to the house. She wondered when her father would be coming home. If she remembered correctly, he had a case in court that day. He might not be home until late.

She stepped inside the house and toed off her shoes. "I'm home!" she called out.

She heard laughter, then footsteps.

"Sansa."

She looked up as she set her computer bag and purse on the floor. Robb stood there, hands at his sides, wearing jeans and white t-shirt. His blue eyes were piercing, his auburn locks were curly whereas her hair was straight as a pin. He had a closely shaved beard, and he was tall and muscular and quite handsome. He was the same as she remembered, and yet different. Older.

He smiled at her, his expression tender.

"Hi, Robb," she said with a small smile. Why did she feel a blush coming on?

He strode over to her and hugged her, catching her off guard. She hugged him back, but felt awkward about it.

"I missed you," he whispered. He sounded almost choked up.

"Sansa, there you are!" Catelyn said from somewhere behind her and Robb. "Robb, for heaven's sake, give her a moment to get in and get settled."

Robb let Sansa go, but he didn't take his eyes off her. His smile was easy, but there was a tension there Sansa noticed. Catelyn was looking closely at her son. She looked oddly tense as well.

"Sorry I'm late," she told her mother and brother. "I lost track of time."

"How's school going?" Robb asked her and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"It's going well," Sansa replied and tucked some hair behind her ear. "I graduate in a month."

"I know," Robb said.

Sansa wasn't sure why she found it odd that he should know that. He talked to their mother all the time, no doubt he'd been kept abreast of what all his siblings were up to.

"Sansa, why don't you come and help me with dinner? Your father's case is done and he'll be home in about an hour." Sansa nodded, flashed Robb a smile, and then followed her Mother to the kitchen.

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Everyone was talking at once, as per usual, at dinner. Everyone but Sansa anyway. Robb was fielding question after question from his parents and his siblings.

He'd gone to Southern California University and had majored in law. He'd decided he didn't want to stay in "So. Cal" and decided to complete his Masters at Winterfell University. Their father had gotten him a job in his practice so he could have hands on experience. With the money he made there, he planned to get his own place.

He didn't have a girlfriend (Arya was curious).

He had met one celebrity while in California (Channing Tatum. Bran wanted to know).

He learned how to surf. (Rickon then wanted Robb to teach him).

When dinner was over, Sansa helped her mother clean up while everyone else went into the living room to continue their interrogations of Robb. She would have thought they'd had enough of that from earlier.

"How do you feel honey?" Catelyn asked. "You were quiet at dinner."

Sansa shrugged. "I'm fine."

When the last dish was placed in the dishwasher, Sansa went into the living room to see what was going on and found Rickon and Bran were already gone, Arya was talking on the phone, and her father and Robb were watching TV. Sansa perched on the armrest of the couch and looked at the TV.

"Dishes all done, honey?" her father asked.

"Yup," Sansa said and got up. She didn't feel like watching Doctor Who.

Halfway up the stairs, she heard Robb saying her name. She turned and found him at the bottom of the stairs, smiling up at her. "Do you want to go for a ride?" he asked.

"To where?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Nowhere specific. Just for a ride. We used to…" he trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

"Used to what?"

He cleared his throat. "We used to go for rides all the time."

Then why hadn't he just said that?

"Sure," she said and came back down the stairs.

When they passed by their mother in the kitchen and told their mother they were going out, she actually looked worried. "Do you think that's a good idea, Robb?" Catelyn asked.

Sansa looked at her mother in confusion. "What's bad about it?" she asked. "The accident was five years ago, Mom. It's not like Robb and I can't be in the same car together anymore because of it."

No one said a word. Sansa didn't get it, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. It was long overdue for everyone to be over that accident. It was done and over with. Why was her mother being so weird about it?

"It's fine, Mom," Robb said and kissed Catelyn's cheek. "There is nothing to worry about."

Sansa asked exactly what she was thinking: "Why wouldn't it be fine?" But neither one answered her.