This shares the same universe with How Else To Say It but this can be read as a stand alone.
NOTE: Title from Carly Rae Jepsen's "Favourite Colour."
Sansa rarely feels like a kettle. A kettle with visceral boiling that sweeps from her chest to her fist like a particularly horrid batch of honeyed tea. Boiling like this is usually reserved for morning flights, Petyr Baelish, and dealing with Petyr Baelish during a morning flight.
It does not help that Sansa unwittingly drank honeyed tea from the Dragonstone ferry at half past five this morning. Honey should never befoul tea.
"No," Sansa nearly bites out into her phone, "that won't be necessary."
"I'm merely suggesting, Sansa," Baelish replies in that oily way which Sansa now recognises as definitely not suggesting. "It's not really wise to head back to the North so soon. Leaving your father –"
The card with the scribbled numbers of Stannis Baratheon and Davos Seaworth crumples in Sansa's fist. Ros the flight attendant hovers before Sansa and regards Sansa's fist with raised brows. She seems quite alarmed to see an isolated point of violence amongst the general air of calm around Sansa. Sansa likes calm, but she vehemently dislikes foul honeyed tea and oozy rodent traitors disguising as creepy men.
Her voice still level, Sansa says, "Is that all, Mr. Baelish?" and when he tries to say something that might make Sansa disregard her mother's orders and also the fact that Baelish was the one who led a handcuffed Father in front of flashing cameras, Sansa plows on, "My answer is no. My flight's taking off soon. I have to go."
Sansa leans her head back and smiles wanly at Ros. Thank the gods Ros is with this morning flight.
Ros is an undisputedly cool older lady. She has many admirers who often display their idiotic gobsmacked faces when Ros offers a politely witty greeting and focuses her red-eyelashed and red-lipped smile at them. Said admirers included Robb, Theon, and a red-faced Jon. And Sansa, but she was smarter so she only used to peep with gobsmacked eyes behind her magazines when Ros inquired if teenaged Sansa would rather have lamb or chicken.
Sansa used to be indifferent and almost dismissive of the fact that majority of the employees in White Harbor Air are Northerners, but after the events these recent events Sansa basks in the sheer comfort of booking a Northern flight back home.
"Go home," Mother told her beneath a swooping branch frothing with red flowers in King's Landing. Mother was still windblown and smelled of stale coffee and the salt of a ferry ride. "Robb and I will sort this out. Go home, love. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell, and one who is reassuringly an adult."
It soon appears that going home means holding fort in Winterfell. The journalists, the publicity, the household wages, Bran and Rickon attending secondary in the North with only Jon doing everything alone. It also means flying off again to consult with Stannis Baratheon's law firm in Dragonstone for Mother, after which Sansa has to ferry back to King's Landing for her flight back to the North.
This is the first time that Sansa's family remained in a single country with the impression of permanence. Father is a consul for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and they always pack after him wherever he gets assigned to every three years.
This has resulted in an odd jetlag-phobia in Sansa.
After she graduated university in Yi Ti along with the kids of Father's colleagues, she wasted no time before flying back to King's Landing where Father just succeeded the late Robert Baratheon as consul general.
Sansa only hoped to grow her own lemons after university, and stay in one place for a long time after the constant impermanence all her life.
Sansa remembers pressing her forehead on the plane window from Yi Ti to have one last look of the ocean, crystal blue with shards of sunlight rippling through it like pieces of diamonds. She thought that after leaving the student house she shared with a younger student Missandei and two older ones, Margaery and Daenerys, after one last walk down the stone and gravel streets of the mango-scented markets, Sansa thought that perhaps it would be the last time that she had to find home in plenty more places. No more frequent aeroplanes and ships and ferries.
"Here's your water, Miss Stark."
Ros sets down a bottle of White Harbor Crystal and a small plastic cup beside Sansa's sunglasses on the plane table. She hesitates, feebly gesturing with a broadsheet. "And a newspaper – maybe –"
Sansa glimpses at the headline. Of course Father's name is there. Charmingly twined with words like embezzling state funds and selling state secrets to Qarth or Yi Ti or both.
Ros starts to hide the newspaper behind her skirt. "Or not. We have a selection of –"
"It's fine, Ros," Sansa says gently. She slips the card into the front pocket of her white shirt. "Let me see the editorial pages."
"Miss Stark?"
Another attendant – Satin, she remembers, he checked Sansa's passport and greeted her when she boarded the plane – wobbles towards them behind a tasteful bouquet of flowers.
"Miss Stark," Satin says, "these are for you. Our airline received instructions to acquire specific flowers and arrange them accordingly."
Sansa takes the bouquet of pink roses, white orchids, and violets in a crinkling of paper and much fluttering of the red and grey ribbons. The card is pale gold and signed by Margaery's hand, loopy and heavy, the curling letters digging into the thick paper.
Margaery is rather like that. Impeccably fashionable and frilly but smacks into your senses and forever carves an impression.
There is still a little over half an hour until take off so Sansa thanks Ros and Satin before picking up her phone again. The grey ribbon feels like a purr around her finger as Sansa twirls it, and she smiles at the flowers as she waits for Margaery.
It doesn't take long before Margaery is purring into the phone. "Well, hello, lovely."
Margaery always purrs, and her purrs put to shame the velvet around Sansa's finger. Sometimes Sansa is still awed by the thought that Margaery's voice box must contain the most syrupy and most potent rose oil made in the Reach.
"You are lovely," Sansa tells her. "And the flowers. Thank you. So, the pink roses are for that time you got drunk on champagne and we loitered on the pavement in front of the Baratheon hotel in Yi Ti. Am I right?"
"You know you are, babe. But I wouldn't call it loitering."
"Okay, ambling." Sansa kicks off her shoes and settles back on her chair as more blessedly cool air swirled in through the slit of her navy pencil skirt. "I didn't know champagne could do that. It was, like, half a bottle."
"I had pre-drinks, if you must know. Besides it was an almost full bottle. Anyway, I love those pink roses you painted on our thighs when we got home."
Sansa feels her neck flushing. "I was just – doodling," she mutters.
"And we held hands on the pavement," Margaery goes on. "It was the first time we ever held hands."
Sansa knows that. She realised that fact with appalling clarity right there on the rain-slick pavement, hours after Margaery rejected Renly Baratheon's marriage proposal during Joffrey's twenty-first birthday party. Sansa realised, whilst her hand felt tingly in Margaery's hold, that it was the first time they held hands since they started hooking up.
That realisation was swiftly followed by Margaery promising to send Sansa flowers from all the places that Margaery will go to after finishing her post-grad.
"Yeah, I know." Sansa means for it to be casual, but it snags in her throat and it comes out differently. But since she knows that permanence is not a thing and that Margaery wants to flit all over the place and both of them kind of reconciled themselves with those facts, Sansa hurries on with, "The orchids, though?"
"That's for when we went to the market to buy things for the beginning of my salad-making frenzy."
"Oh my gods. When the pigeon chased me?"
Margaery cackles. She even manages to make a cackle sound like rose oil poured into hot buttery waffles, dear gods. "I massaged your feet whilst you fed me my salad. That was brilliant."
Sansa's toes curl on top of her shoes. She fusses over the satiny red ribbons of her bouquet. "I miss you –r salads."
"Really? For a time you had this wild look in your eyes."
"No one makes salads like you, but like you said, it was a bit of a salad frenzy, for like, three weeks?"
Margaery hums. Something which sounds like a squeak hums down the line, too.
"What are you doing?" Sansa asks.
"Oh, I'm feeding a rabbit. The most adorable. It's for stress relief."
"Why?" Sansa almost coos. "What's wrong now?"
"Same as last week." Margaery sighs and clucks her tongue. "Taena Merryweather is notably a pain. Sometimes I wish she just chose modelling as a career, but I've always liked a challenge."
Sansa rang Margaery the evening before heading to Dragonstone, putting the phone on speaker as she carefully tucked in a small sketchpad with her blouses in the hopes of shaking herself out of the Cannot Paint Right Now Gutter.
From what Sansa gathered, Taena Merryweather is the Myrish expat wife of Orton Merryweather, and scarily efficient in spreadsheets and press releases, and makes Cersei Lannister scarier because Taena is the one who gently steers her to make sound, sane, and therefore much more effective decisions.
Sansa is torn between admiration and resentment. She wants Cersei Lannister to make not only inexplicable but also plainly insane decisions, for Father's sake. Tywin Lannister may be on his daughter's side, but a lot of people somehow have a vague idea to expect underhanded cleverness from him. They don't know what to expect of the unassuming woman hovering behind Cersei Lannister, though.
For instance, Sansa did not expect Robb to go a little – loopy. It must be the stress.
Robb had a fit of tipsy texting last week, beginning with questions about synonyms for brown, then realising that the woman he fancies is not only married but also from Cersei Lannister's PR team, and then mournfully telling Sansa that his sonnet with praises for black hair and brown skin and clever eyes is a waste now.
Jon texted back with, "He's always been an intense idiot."
Margaery paused in her rant about Taena with, "You know, Loras and I once thought that Robb is quite fit. It must be the red curls and the earnestness."
That made Sansa snap her mouth shut and wildly contemplate strangling her lampshade with her unpacked scarf. But she remembered that she's not exactly dating Margaery so her reaction was ridiculous and inappropriate.
"But not as fit as you, babe," Margaery continued. "And I'm not exactly keen on too much earnestness, you know?"
"Are you eating well?" Sansa asks Margaery now. "You should eat bread. Or, like, any carb. Carb's great for energy."
"Yes, I will. What bread?"
"Wheat is good," Sansa suggests, then chuckles. "I can't believe I have to recommend balanced diet to a notorious salad monster."
Margaery's laugh is full throated and delighted.
Sansa takes a gratified sip of her water. Her seat is very comfortable, she notes idly.
"I think I already told you," Margaery says after a pause, "but I really love that postcard you sent from Dragonstone. I'm looking at right now. Did you paint it there?"
"Yeah."
After an afternoon of cooing down the phone to Margaery's hung over complaints on Taena Merryweather and how much Margaery didn't expect for her bachelors in polisci and masters in journalism to be unglamourous after all, Sansa sat by the window of her hotel in Dragonstone with a torn out page of her sketchpad.
Then Sansa gathered the colours red and black for the volcano and salt of Dragonstone, and grey, and thought of stress before she slashed the colours all over the thick paper. After that Sansa carefully blotted a small thin band of gold and a tiny sprucing of green in the midst of the turbulence, and she sent the thing to Margaery.
It came to this. They had a thing back in uni, and they agreed that they have different wishes for themselves. Sansa sends Margaery handmade postcards, and Margaery sends her flowers, some of them preserved blooms from the Summer Isles and Volantis.
It's now this little ritual, and it's a constant and warmly familiar.
"Tell the little rabbit I said hi," Sansa says, her fingers ghosting over the violets in the bouquet.
"I'll send you a picture of us after you land," Margaery promises.
Sansa does not ask what the violets mean. Not one bouquet from Margaery looks the same, but every one of them has a spray of violets.
Their flight makes a brief landing in Wickendon in the Vale.
Some passengers voice complaints as if the surprise freakish heavy snowfall in White Harbor were a poor mismanagement.
Sansa has a complaint as well but mostly it just involves her yearning to see a cute rabbit selfie, and Margaery will still be in meetings.
So Sansa just takes out her oil pastels and sketchpad and sends a commiserating smile to Ros as Ros bustles down the aisle with crumpets for the seats behind Sansa.
The hum around the cabin lulls Sansa into a strange calm as she picks out soaring colours. She listens to pieces of stories as her pastels sweep and curl on the page: the inevitable mention of Father, Arianne Martell petitioning for gay rights outside of Dorne, a nature and wildlife festival in Torrhen's Square, Jaime Lannister's hand accident in the Harrenhal tennis tournament, the Sand Snakes touring, one very involved discussion about Essosi hair dye.
Sansa thinks of calm, a loosening of muscles, an uncurling fist, a gentle soaring as she colours and hears little Lyanna Mormont behind her solemnly discuss rabbits with an older sister.
On the postcard a discreet swath of grey flows with the blue, and amongst them there is a faint ripple of gold, and a vibrant green dots the cream weaved with blue.
Sansa smiles at the bouquet on the seat beside her as she folds the card, hoping that she could mail it in White Harbor.
"I saw a t-shirt this afternoon," Margaery tells her. "It made me think of you. It's stenciled with Righteous And Loves Pie."
The bus window is misty and chilled when Sansa leans her head on it. The people here love Father and they don't fawn on well-known people, but Sansa still sat on the back row and obscured her face with her sunglasses and the bouquet.
She's been in this bus for three hours now and an hour of that was spent ridiculously smiling at the picture Margaery sent. Only Margaery would impulsively buy a pet rabbit. She's always like that, bursting and blooming, like a storm of flowers which makes you wordlessly blink and hesitantly think about ringing the weather bureau.
"I don't think I'm that righteous." Sansa reaches into the other front pocket of her white shirt for the airport's candy bar. "And you're the one who loves pie."
"You can put vegetables in pie. A salad pie, if you will."
Sansa lets out a good-natured groan. "Do you eat any other pie?"
"Miss Rabbit and I are eating carrots now," Margaery reports. "Carrot pie sounds good. You sound tired, though."
"I'll be home in two hours."
"Eat something sweet to cheer you up." Margaery's voice still bubbles with amusement but it's warmer now. She appreciates that Margaery does not ask about Father again after that evening in Sansa's tiny King's Landing flat, when a coldness tided over Sansa and she gritted out on the phone that she wasn't comfortable talking about it.
Sansa bites into her chocolate bar and feels a coziness seeping into her.
"Or a cake after you get home," Margaery continues. "The Seven know how much you advocate cake over pie."
"Hey," Sansa laughs, and they argue about cake versus pie.
Sansa is knotting her trainers' laces in the ghostly grey light from the windows.
Jon ordered chocolate and cream cake for pudding last night, and Bran and Rickon kept arguing with Arya on videochat on who is the best member of the Sand Snakes. Then Sansa tottered into her room, reminded Margaery to sleep at a healthy hour or Miss Rabbit will cry, and the next thing Sansa knew she was blinking at her clock. Her clock blinked back and informed her that it was half past six in the morning.
She finishes knotting her laces and with a brief rasp of her fingers on the cold stone floor, she stands up and heads out of her home.
Sansa needs to think. Or not think. She doesn't know which. All she knows is that she can't paint. Sansa wants to paint, and she should be painting. It's making her restless.
The tops of the Wolfswood are running their leafy fingers across the pale grey sky, and the sharp nails of the wind raking across Sansa's face are more than welcome as she jogs.
Winterfell warms Sansa best. The colours here are reserved, not as bright as in Qarth and Dorne, nor as sparkling as in Yi Ti. Not as soaring as in the Vale nor as glossy as in King's Landing. The chilled colours of Winterfell calm and warm Sansa's mind, and she thinks this is the best home she has ever had.
The Smoking Log in Winter town makes the best cider around so Sansa heads there after her jog. A breakfast treat for Bran to see his sweet and gentle smile early in the day, and for Rickon to encourage him to keep laughing, and for Jon to assure him that Sansa's here to help him.
Robb is the one amongst them to say "I love you" as often as he breathes, and mean it.
Sansa gradually finds that the words tremble and cower on her tongue if she has to address them to a particular person, so she does it best by bringing them home apple cider early in the morning, for instance.
She feels pathetic.
Sansa steps into the Smoking Log and into a roaring of hoots and laughter.
To the left of the pub there is a small group of pounding their thighs or their bellies. Even the barmaid Berena is shaking her head with laughter as she hands a cup to a customer.
Sansa wonders what could be so riotously funny this early in the morning. She carefully approaches the bar in case any more bursts of hilarity jabs her with an elbow, but midway through the crowd disperses for more breakfast, revealing Margaery in the middle.
A soft gasp escapes Sansa as their eyes meet.
It's been two years since they saw each other in the flesh, so when Margaery shoots her a lopsided smile Sansa has a sudden vision of green gilded by golden sunlight, and a profusion of flowers, and ivory lace stained with Arbor gold.
"Margaery," Sansa sputters out. Great. She can feel her face blending in with her red hair. "What are you doing here – I mean, how?"
"Fancy a hot drink?" Margaery says, and reaches for Sansa's hand.
They unlink hands so that they can seat by the bar.
Margaery's coffee comes with a dash of whiskey and topped with cream.
"I thought you're in Harrenhal," Sansa prompts her. Sansa sent the latest two cards to Harrenhal, and the one before those to Goldengrove.
"I was." Margaery stirs the heap of whipped cream into her coffee and slants an almost secretive smile at Sansa. "I also spent the last two days in Torrhen's Square."
"Wait, what?" Sansa exclaims. "You've been in the North all this time?"
"Only two days," Margaery says with a noncommittal tilt of her head. "I met Miss Rabbit in the nature festival in Torrhen's Square, and two evenings ago I quit my job."
Sansa steadies her hands around her mug. "Can't stand parlaying with Taena Merryweather?"
"Oh, I can," Margaery says, and looks thoughtful. "But then – I thought – I think I should pursue journalism, not being a consul for Highgarden."
"Okay," Sansa says, nodding supportively. "That's amazing. How come, though?"
Margaery leans closer, her long brown curls swinging, and lowers her voice. "I have this plan, you see. I thought hard about it for some months. I will become a well-regarded news anchor, and after a few years I will run for the government. Then I will climb the political ladder. I will be Prime Minister one day."
The yellow lamps on the wall behind Margaery are glittering from smoke and the polished cherrywood of the bar by Sansa's hand is being warmed by her mug of cider. Berena is wittering something about biscuits, and in the table behind Sansa someone is talking about bird feed. Everything is so mundane and here beneath the shadowed and dusty ceiling Margaery is telling her with gleaming eyes that Margaery will become Prime Minister.
That means a more turbulent path for Margaery, and Sansa can't say that she is surprised. Margaery is a storm of riotous blooms, after all.
Sansa clears her throat. "That's amazing," she repeats, and smiles. "Of course I'll support you. You should go for it."
Margaery draws back a bit and her brown eyes flicker as she studies Sansa's face.
Sansa keeps her face amiable enough as she sips her cider. The cinnamon stick crumbles in her mouth.
"What are you doing today?" Margaery says at last.
"Um. Nothing much." Sansa wishes she could paint something but she's still drawing blank. "Maybe answer some emails, take some phone calls. Sometimes Rickon has questions about Trigonometry."
"Oh yes? So who cooks?"
Margaery has her teasing smile back which relaxes Sansa somewhat. Sansa can tell other people stories for hours. As long as she's not the story. Sansa doesn't know why she finds it difficult to tell the stark truth about herself even to people she's close with, like Robb often does, bare as bone and bold as statements like, "I love you," or "I hate you," or "I'm scared."
Sansa can tell herself stories, though. Sometimes a cold touch in her mind tells her back that she's lying to herself, that's why it's easier.
"We have a cook," Sansa says. "Gage. He makes the best omelets, and oh, we often have century egg. It's duck egg but black because of some spices and because it's buried underground for a month. "
"And I thought it's time for you to share your cooking skills you've learned from living in a student house," Margaery laughs.
"It's not like you're any better."
"Excuse me," Margaery says in her most Reach accent, "I learned how to put together leaves and greens."
"But you don't cook them," Sansa points out, grinning. "I attempted to make omelet two weeks ago but I nearly scooped my eyes out because of the onions. Then Jon attempted to soften a bar of butter in the quickest way possible, for his toast, and melted the whole thing. Gage kicked us both out of the kitchen." Then abruptly, Sansa adds, "How about your brothers?"
Margaery launches into an update about her brothers and on the horrors of parents not teaching their children how to cook, and Sansa thinks this is an okay meeting after all.
It's still an okay meeting when Sansa orders three apple ciders to-go and they step out of the Smoking Log into the cold light, Margaery's shoulder warm against Sansa.
Then Margaery announces, "I haven't seen a winter rose yet. Ever."
Sansa raises her eyebrows. "Ever?"
"No. They grow only in the North. Lucky you."
"Yeah, well, but we have glass gardens –" Sansa starts, before a terribly enthusiastic gleam appears in Margaery's eyes.
"Your own greenhouse for winter roses?" Margaery presses.
"Not my own, of course," Sansa says. "My family's. And there are other plants there as well, so."
"How lovely," Margaery enthuses.
"Would you like to see them?" Sansa asks, a bit helplessly.
They walk the well-known paths to Sansa, which suddenly become newer and more familiar at the same time. Here Margaery walks on the best home Sansa has ever had, and Margaery was once Sansa's home. Margaery is also constant and familiar, but she's always far and going away. She has never imagined Margaery in the North.
Sansa doesn't know how to feel, so she just secures the to-go tray in her grip and tells stories about the spots they pass by. She also coaxes Margaery to tell stories: about Margaery's grandmother, who has a cleaver-sharp mind and who at one point managed to monopolise figs.
"I was quite deep in heroine worship of her," Margaery says. "I told you that before, haven't I? Anyway, I grew up and realised she's as human as I am, although infinitely more cunning. I love her. It's as if I have parents, you know, but Grandmother's the parent and I still haven't told her about quitting my job."
About Margaery's father, who loves golf most of all and who dotes on Margaery's mother, who in turn is the economist in the family and a much gentler diplomat than Margaery's grandmother. About Margaery's crippled brother Willas who is deft with stocks, and Garlan who is an Age of Heroes athlete. And Loras, who is aspiring to be a tennis Age of Heroes athlete, and an avid supporter of Arianne Martell's campaign.
"One time we had a cold war in the house," Margaery says at one point, when the slope of a hill gives way to a view of Winterfell. "Father, Mother, and Garlan couldn't stand the Greenhand autumn 305 collection so they decided to boycott and wear Ashford boots all season. Ashford isn't really good with autumn colours, and it was painful, seeing mahogany red in the house instead of currant red. I love apple red, though."
Sansa laughs and asks questions about the fashion shows in the Reach until they arrive in Winterfell. She does it to keep Margaery occupied, and also because Sansa can listen to Margaery prattle on about fashion collections even though Sansa barely understands it.
On the front door Sansa greets Rickon good morning with a kiss on his forehead and with three tall apple ciders for his arms.
Then she leads Margaery through the compound, ironwood leaves rustling in the cold wind. Sansa glances at the red ribbon on Margaery's hair and the sequined embroidery on Margaery's emerald green coat, and wonders what Margaery thinks of the cold and of the chilled colours which warm Sansa.
Margaery gasps when they enter glass garden number three, but there is a wide smile on her face as she takes in the rows and rows of flowers and other ornamental plants.
There are no gardeners present.
Margaery grabs Sansa's hand and glides towards the corner with the winter roses.
"They're so beautiful," Margaery says. Her fingertips hover over the frost-blue roses.
Sansa wordlessly slips on the pair of gloves hanging by the roses and takes the shears by the gloves. After some cutting and snipping, Sansa hands the smoothened stem to Margaery.
It reminds Sansa of the time in uni when Margaery offered Sansa a yellow rose, when they barely knew each other.
"It's so beautiful," Margaery says again, her awed eyes on the rose. "It looks cold, but it's beautiful. Thank you. It's so different from the roses in Highgarden, or King's Landing."
"It's a winter rose," Sansa says with a smile as she hangs back the gloves and the shears.
"Have you painted winter roses?" Margaery asks. "How's your painting, by the way?"
Sansa sticks her hands into her jacket pockets. "It's fine," she says, easily enough. "I was planning on shopping for some paints soon. Like, natural pigments. Are there naturally-made paint stalls in Torrhen's Square when you were -"
"Stop that," Margaery orders sharply.
It was so sudden that it cut Sansa into momentary silence. Her eyes snap back to Margaery. Margaery's lips are white and her eyes are hard.
"What?" Sansa whispers.
"Stop – stop doing that. Sansa." Margaery places her winter rose on top of the others without taking her eyes off Sansa. "You can talk to me. I told you -" Margaery's voice softens – "I've told you, you can talk to me. I know it must've been hard for you right now, with your -"
"You stop!" Sansa bites out. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Don't keep it in," Margaery says. She looks tremendously sincere. "Please. Don't -"
Sansa takes in a quick breath and when she opens her eyes, she coldly says, "You have no business in how I handle this. I'm all right, Margaery."
And then Margaery's voice comes up, like a wave crashing on a frozen shore.
"Do you think I don't listen?" she demands. "Do you think you can fool me as well? Do you think I haven't been listening to you for the past five years? You're a good storyteller, and you're a good liar, but you're best in telling how much you love painting. How much it means to you." Margaery steps towards Sansa with a snarl and Sansa almost steps back. "I don't give a fuck about the particulars of staring at a blank piece of canvas and producing pigment art, but I love it when you talk about it. I don't care about any of that, but when you talk about it you make me love it. You're so open and honest when you talk about your art."
Distantly Sansa notes that her hands in her pockets are damp.
"I don't – I -" Sansa stammers. She removes her hands from her pockets and stares at them, unseeingly.
"How are you?" Margaery insists, and her voice, worried and hard, makes Sansa look up. "How are you, really? Please tell me."
That's the thing, though. Sansa finds this difficult, to be put on the spot about things like this. She doesn't know why she finds it difficult to process how she feels into words. All she knows are the moments in airports when Father would worriedly ask how she was and Sansa has to assure him that she's all right. It's not his fault, he's only doing his job, and Father's kind and gentle face has anchored Sansa from Winterfell to the various homes she had to find in strange places. All the moments in those strange places where Sansa was apologetic about her newness and tried to blend in to please everyone. All the moments when Sansa was reminded yet again that not much is permanent, everything always moves and Sansa has to keep up.
Sansa is always all right. She's tried her best not to be a problem child, to be self-sufficient enough, and be all right.
"I don't know," Sansa rasps out. "It's okay. It's not your problem."
Margaery looks like her toes got trodden on. "Why would you say that? That – that it's not my problem?"
"You're my friend, Margaery," Sansa says, blinking away the persistent haze, "but sometimes friends – friends can't solve each other's problems all the time. It's not fair. It wouldn't be fair to you."
"I'm not just your friend," Margaery grounds out, stepping closer still, an intent look on her face. Sansa has a flash of memory: Margaery rambling about her plans as she stroked Sansa's hair whilst Sansa licked away the spilled Arbor gold on the ivory lace covering Margaery's breast and the student house slept around them.
Sansa lets out a disbelieving laugh. "What do you mean? Of course you're my friend."
Then Sansa sees on the intense lines of Margaery's face that she's also thinking of what Sansa is thinking.
"I can't believe you," Sansa tells her, even as she thinks of the sprays of violets in every bouquet she has been receiving for the past few years. "So – so you want to – to have it all? Your plans and – and me – and I thought all along – did you think, what, that I would always be waiting for you?"
It's Margaery who briefly closes her eyes this time. "No. No, I didn't. But I hoped." She opens her eyes and they still pin Sansa on the spot. "I love you, and I love myself, and I want to have what I love. It's not wrong to want it all."
"Well, you failed to inform me," Sansa says, her voice trembling. What are they even talking about now? "I chose me over us, and you chose you over us, and I was grateful to be your friend so how dare you -"
"I chose me and us."
"You didn't make that clear enough -"
"I was sorting myself," Margaery admits. "I got quite freaked out about commitment and all that."
"You're not the only one who needs to sort herself out regarding that!" Sansa's voice sounds thin to her ears. "You're incredibly selfish."
"I know. I'm sorry." Margaery lifts an arm, but she lets it fall to her side again. "Do you hate me for it?"
Sansa shuts up. She stares at Margaery, bewildered, and looks at the glass ceiling. The muted sun is climbing higher in the sky, striking the glass and splintering into lemon shards over Margaery's head and the hazy colours around them and the winter roses.
"Do you hate me for it?" Margaery repeats. She makes another approach, hesitantly this time, and now her breath is close enough to warm Sansa's cheek as she continues, "Do you – do you hate me now, Sansa? What do you feel about me?"
Sansa opens her mouth and finds that she has no words.
"It's okay if you resent me now," Margaery says. "Is that how you feel about me now? You can tell me, and I won't bother you again. Whatever you want."
How do you bottle up all emotions leading up to a feeling and give that feeling a name, Sansa wonders. All Sansa can name are colours.
Sansa whispers, "I don't know what to say."
Sansa thinks of colours, and how they gloop and dot and sweep and devour a page.
"I tried to tell you." It feels as if all the rose thorns she sheared off ended up in Sansa's throat as she swallows. "I tried to tell you, and myself, but it's all so silly. Postcards, I mean, I'm so stupid," Sansa rambles, and she's appalled that she's crying now. "I didn't even know what I was trying to tell you, or myself, but it's all I know how – I mean, with what you appear to be feeling and how you make me feel in those moments, but they all make sense in colours – I just – I have no words -"
Sansa knows she's embarrassing herself, but it's all incredibly hazy now, the leaves and the flowers and the glass trembling and turning watery.
Margaery cups Sansa's wet cheek and lifts herself up two inches to kiss Sansa's eyelids. The blurry and watery trembling on Sansa's eyelashes fall, and she blinks to a clearer sight of Margaery's face.
"It's all right," Margaery murmurs. "It's all right. I understand now." Her other hand finds Sansa's, Margaery's fingers were quivering a bit before she steadies herself by gripping Sansa's firmly. Sansa holds on and Margaery runs a thumb on Sansa's cheek. "I have words enough for both of us."
"I'll be going on Monday," Margaery tells her. "Hopefully I start interviews the same week."
They are standing by the kitchen counter, the afternoon sunlight sliding gently on the lace curtains. Sunshine in the North is mild so Sansa does not have to squint or shield her eyes to see. She really likes it best in Winterfell.
The rest of the house finished lunch some hours ago so they are left alone in the kitchen. Sansa tosses the lemon peels in the bin and rummages in the cupboard for sugar.
"That's cool," Sansa says. She scoops three spoons of sugar into the jug of freshly squeezed lemon juice. "Ring me if you got accepted in something or if, like, you peed in a boot in the nearby alley."
Margaery laughs, pausing her knife-busy hands. "That was once!"
Sansa figures she's forgiven in her teasing when Margaery feeds her a slice of an apple. "Does your grandmother know about that?" Sansa asks around the slice.
"She does, actually. I always have the best cocktail conversations."
"You're a great conversationalist," Sansa agrees as she hunts for the long spoon in the drawer.
For a few moments there is silence but for the clink of the spoon as Sansa stirs and the rasp of knife on apple as Margaery slices. If there's anything they're both good at, it's smoothing out situations.
Then Margaery says, "And I'll pop by Harrenhal for the postcard."
Sansa stops stirring. She contemplates the lemon juice, thinking of putting apple slices in the glass for Margaery because she likes her lemons less tarty, before looking at Margaery. "Okay," she says, "I hope you like it."
Margaery bites the inside of her cheek. She's putting down half an apple and the knife at one moment and suddenly, she's hauling herself up on the counter. This makes her eyes at the exact level as Sansa's that Sansa has to smile.
"I do love your postcards," Margaery says, casually. She picks up the apple and knife again. "Where did you make the last one?"
"In the Vale. I told you about the temporary landing."
"Yes, I remember." Margaery pops a slice in her mouth and chews thoughtfully. "How's the card?" She takes Sansa's hand. "Tell me about the card?"
"Oh, just, you know." Sansa brushes away a lock of hair which escaped from her braid. "It's – it's very languid. Lots of gentle soaring. I was going for rising smoke or, like, the slow swirling inside a crystal glass?"
"Is the Vale languid?" Margaery asks. "Were you looking out the window?"
"No, I mean." Sansa squeezes Margaery's hand but doesn't let go. Margaery's hand is a warm and solid weight. "The Vale has soaring colours. And the plane was peaceful at that point. I was talking to Baelish earlier and thinking of disliking flying and I had a lousy start of the day. But your bouquet came, and you sounded relaxed whilst you fed Miss Rabbit, and we talked a bit, so."
Margaery is smiling. "I love that."
After a pause, during which Margaery offers Sansa another slice, Margaery says, "I'll do a lot of flying around when I become a journalist. I'm not asking you to come with me, of course, but I just have to make it clear that I will continue on with my plan."
Sansa squeezes on Margaery's hand again, as long as it's still there. "Okay, I get that. And I really want you to be Prime Minister. I want you to be happy." Sansa means it. She wants the best for Margaery.
"When I become a news anchor, it'll steady a bit," Margaery continues. "Then it's another bustle when I campaign for office."
"You're a storm of riotous blooms," Sansa says.
A smile bloomed on Margaery's face, stretching her lips and nose and eyes so that it looks like all parts of her face are beaming. "Is that how you think of me?" she asks, sounding pleased.
"Yeah. You're very turbulent. It makes you happy."
"What makes you happy?"
Sansa thinks of a spreading warmth and letting her guard down, of sleeping unbothered in the night and growing her own lemons. Of the smile on Margaery's face just now. "Calm, I guess. Stability. Winterfell. And you being happy."
Margaery swings their knotted hands a few more times. "Will you be my girlfriend?"
It startles Sansa that she almost lets go of Margaery's hand before remembering that she won't get to hold it for too long. It's the first time either of them said that word about this – about what they have. This must be Margaery's way of bringing stability to Sansa, at this point in time, to have something define them, something tangible to hold on to.
Sansa fiercely holds on Margaery's hand. She reaches for Margaery's other hand and draws herself closer to Margaery. "Okay," she says, feeling her cheeks lift up and ache. "Okay. I'd – I'd love that. I love that."
Margaery draws Sansa closest so that Sansa settles between Margaery's thighs. "Really?"
Sansa nods. Margaery is trying so she can try, too. "I'd love that – to be your girlfriend." There's something giddy simmering in Sansa's chest right now, burbling like the sap of a weirwood. "I'll send you a postcard on Monday."
"My very own favour for the job applications," Margaery quips.
"So, I'm thinking. For the card, I mean. The colours will be grey and white and green and gold."
"Go on."
"Nothing's final yet for the illustration, but. Maybe an unfinished braid? Or an ice boulder? I don't know yet. Oh, and blue."
"What's the blue for?" Margaery says.
"The winter rose," Sansa says. "The card is for you, and you think winter roses are beautiful."
Margaery pecks her on the nose. "I love how you think. Go on. What's the white, then?"
Sansa draws in a deep breath. "White reminds me of a clean slate, something like a fresh start. White feels like hope. And grey -"
Sansa haltingly babbles on, but she can try. Margaery is trying, and Sansa can try for Margaery.
When Sansa finishes Margaery says, throwing her arms around Sansa's shoulders, "I'm excited for the card. I'll ring you to let you know where I will be."
"Yeah, okay," Sansa says, as she hesitantly settles her hands from the counter top to Margaery's waist.
"I'll be carrying it around during the interviews," Margaery says, smiling lopsidedly at Sansa. "If anyone asks, it's from my girlfriend. Or if anyone doesn't ask, I'll still say it's from my girlfriend."
"I'm glad," Sansa says, letting her voice warm with how much she means it, and Margaery leans forward.
Margaery's lips are firm and assured, and her brown curls fall like a veil around them. Sansa's eyes are closed into the kiss but there are buttery bursts of light behind the dark of her eyelids, reminding Sansa of the gentle lemon northern sunshine and of how near Margaery's intent brown eyes were, and of the giddy feeling in her chest as well, now bursting, too.
Colours in seemingly empty and non-page places. Colours Sansa cannot touch but colours nonetheless. It's a start.
fin