Disclaimer: It should go without saying, but no copyright infringement was intended. The dialogue in this story comes from Season 7, Episode 7 of Games of Thrones. This scene is one of my favorites from the show; I had to write about it.
Author's Note: I would like to apologize for the mistake I had made with the previous version of this story. Silly me had accidentally uploaded an one shot from a different fandom.
Enjoy!
"You stand accused of murder," Sansa spelled out in a controlled, careful voice, "You stand accuse of treason..."
Her eyes rested directly on Arya. It was what everyone, most of those in the room, would have expected. Arya. Rebellious Arya. The lady who refused to be such. The lady who created such tension upon her arrival sometime before that some people suspected that the sisters would no longer see themselves as sisters. But rather as threats. Petyr certainly had, certainly hoped for.
"How do you answer these charges..." Sansa briefly pushed, looking into the eyes of her dear sister. No fear reflected in them, just as she suspected. At the last moment, her attention shifted to a confident Lord, standing on the side. "Lord Baelish?"
All eyes were on the Lord. Sansa patiently waited for a response, while Arya turned to the stunned Lord, smirking.
The man was lost for words. Sansa couldn't believe it; this wasn't the Petyr Baelish, the infamous Littlefinger, she had known. But she suspected that this was the Petyr Baelish that Arya had always known.
"My sister asked you a question."
Petyr took a couple of steps forward, looking around to see if there was anyone else just as taken aback as he was. "I'm sorry, Lady Sansa, but I'm a bit confused..."
Confused? Petyr Baelish was never confused. Confusion, in his eyes, was nothing but a show of weakness. And he was anything but—He had told her such many times, and now, there he was, insulting her intelligence. She leaned in, offended by his lack of faith of her judgement, and asked, she supposed, puzzled herself, "What charges confuse you?"
She didn't give the Lord the time to reply.
"Let's start with the simplest one," she began, folding her hands on her lap. Petyr still had that stupefied expression on her face; she needed it to disappear. "You murdered our aunt, Lysa Arryn. You pushed her through the moon door and watched her fall. Do you deny it?"
It was a loaded question. But through Petyr's teachings, Sansa had learned that it was an important aspect of any questioning. The response to such a rhetorical question held more weight than the truth.
Petyr did not respond.
Not immediately.
Sansa waited for the Lord to come up with his patented excuse. And she got what she wanted. Apparently, according to the Lord, he did it to protect her.
Sansa stared at Petyr, deadpanned. "You did it to take power in the Vale."
She honestly hadn't expected for her teacher to insult her intelligence in such a grotesque manner. In front of everyone.
Sansa then asked about Jon Arryn. She already knew the answer, but she wondered if the Lord would wise up and start taking her seriously.
He did not.
Apparently, according to the Lord, Aunt Lysa was... simply put, insanely paranoid.
"You had Aunt Lysa send a letter to our parents, telling them it was the Lannister's who married Jon Arryn when really it was you."
"The conflict between the Stark's and the Lannister's, it was you who started it. Do you deny it?"
All Sansa wanted Petyr to be, at this moment, was honest.
He wasn't.
"You conspired with Cersei Lannister and Joffrey Baratheon to betray our father, Ned Stark. Thanks to your treachery, he was imprisoned and later executed on false charges of treason. Do you deny it?"
He finally denied it.
But it wasn't what Sansa wanted.
And his minor speech following such denial wasn't what Sansa wanted either. Thankfully, Arya and Bran made Petyr realize that his grand plan was spoiled, rotting before his very eyes.
Petyr's reaction was a revelation.
She flashed back to years before, during her travels with the infamous Hound. She had remembered the man's words about death, about how one would truly reveal themselves at the sight of their own death. For years, Petyr had portrayed himself as a man who was only one step ahead of everyone else, smart, calculating, expressing no sense of fear. But here he was; collapsed to his knees on the cold, stone floor, staring up at her with pleading eyes. For a moment, Sansa didn't know if that was truly him. He seemed so... pathetic.
Such a fucking coward, she heard Sandor say in the back of her mind. He was cowering, begging not out of apologetic sincerity, but out of selfish. He assumed that his wails and strained chanting of her name would pull on Sansa's heart strings. He was partially right; his pleas did strike a chord. But only one, and one wasn't enough to change his fate.
"If only we can speak alone," he said in a voice Sansa had never heard from him. "I can explain everything."
His life was in Sansa's hands. He knew it. Everyone knew it, but the actual final blow wouldn't be by Sansa's hand; she didn't think she could do it. The deed would be performed by the one who was the most prepared, Arya whose hand was tightly wrapped around the handle of her blade.
"Sometimes, when I try to understand a person, I play a little game..."
It was a game she had created during her time in King's Landing. During, what she often referred to, as her most foolish days. She had thought she could handle Joffrey, be his lawfully-wedded wife, make her love her and give her children. But that hadn't worked. She had thought, though a very small part of her, that she could tolerate being married to Tyrion. He wasn't the prince, the handsomely strong and chivalrous prince, she had always dreamed of. But he had been kind to her, and kind, at that moment, had been what she needed— in the end, nothing had worked in her favor.
"I've seen the worst," she carried on, remembering the sight of her father's severed heard, and her time as the wife of the vile Ramsey Bolton. "What's the worst reason you have for turning me against my sister?"
Sansa's stone eyes did not falter as their target stood up. It was at the moment when Sansa realized that Petyr had given her what she utmost desired. He saw her. He saw his pupil putting his teaching in use.
"That's what you do, isn't it?"
Sansa had figured out Petyr's game. As satisfying as it was, she wished it hadn't ended like this. She wished Petyr had been honest and loyal, had been truly looking out her being and not her position. He had been her guide for so long, but a small part of her didn't know if she could go on without him.
"Sansa, please..."
There he was again, pleading. Begging. Thinking he was standing in front of the Sansa who he had sold to the Bolton's for her own "sake." That Sansa would have fallen for his act.
"I'm a slower learner," Sansa admitted. She had been a fool for most of her life. She had heard such from many people, some with a good heart, and some with a teasing one. "It's true, but I learn."
"I loved your mother since I was a boy..."
He had, apparently.
"And yet you betrayed her."
"I love you," Petyr pathetically confessed, "More than anyone..."
His voice cracked in the end. Perhaps, to draw out sympathy from a woman who did not know much about receiving sincere love from another man.
"And yet you betrayed me." Sansa rose from her seat. It was time. "When you brought me back to Winterfell, you told me there was no justice in the world not unless we make it."
And he was right.
Because she learned.
The hard way. The malicious way. The way she wouldn't want to think she would wish on others.
But she had learned.
"Thank you for all your many lessons, Lord Baelish," Sansa said as Arya's attention returned to the fallen Lord. It was time for her, as all. "I will never forget them."