Nothing to Forgive

by Sarah1281

After the war, so much is uncertain but Arya and Sansa know two things: they regret all the childish hurts from years ago and their sister has done nothing that needs forgiveness.

Nothing to Forgive

Of course Sansa knew what it meant, that startled way that Arya had looked at her when they were finally in front of each other again. It was the same way that everybody looked at her these days, all those long-lost pieces of her past coming back to her at last. She was growing used to it and there were worse comparisons to be made. At least Arya didn't seem to actually mistake her identity like little Rickon had. Even with all her experience keeping her composure, even with every courtesy her life had literally depended on, she hadn't known what to do then.

Sansa had always, always been told she looked like her mother. Now, gazing into the mirror, she could almost pretended that was who she saw. Some days that wasn't even painful.

Arya didn't look like their mother. She didn't look much like she had when Sansa had last seen her, either. Hardly prim and proper by anyone's standards but the epitome of a lady compared to how she looked now. She was too skinny, she was wearing boy's clothing, her hair was a hopeless mess.

She was beautiful.

"Sansa," Arya said hesitantly.

Sansa felt a smile overtake her and she scooped her sister into a hug.

Arya froze at first but then relaxed and returned it.

"Arya," Sansa murmured into her hair. "I thought you were dead. And then I thought…and even I had heard what they said about that terrible bastard up at the Dreadfort! But it wasn't you, it was poor Jeyne, and I just-Arya!"

Arya pulled away first, looking seriously up at her. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Sansa repeated, confused. "Arya, what could you possibly be sorry for? It's not your fault what those monsters did to Jeyne. If you had been there it just would have been you and you're even younger than she is! If it had been you then their bid to claim Winterfell might very well have worked! And I can't bear to think of you there, not after I saw what they did to Jeyne."

"I wouldn't have let him do that to me," Arya said darkly. "I'd have killed him long before that."

Sansa's first impulse was to tell Arya that she was being ridiculous and of course she couldn't have just killed Ramsay Snow. But then she looked closer and, almost against her will, nodded. "Maybe you would have. But you never would have lived to tell the tale."

"Oh, I don't know," Arya said boldly. "I'm rather good in these 'you'll never survive' kinds of situations. And even if I didn't…well it'd be worth it, wouldn't it?"

Sansa shuddered. After everything that had happened, Jeyne may never be the same but Theon had gotten her out. That combined with Bran and Rickon's miraculous recovery meant that she didn't think she'd ever be able to truly hate him, not even taking into consideration his own suffering at the Dreadfort. "It doesn't matter. It wasn't you and you have nothing to be sorry for."

"That wasn't what I meant," Arya said, chewing on her lip.

"Then what?"

Arya smiled wanly. "Oh, where to even begin? I'm sorry that I'm not the sister you always wanted."

Sansa had thought that way once. It was how she thought when she had last seen Arya and, in truth, for a great deal afterwards. She had always wanted someone more like herself than like her brothers. It had always been a bit lonely to feel like the only daughter sometimes even with a sister.

Then she had met Margaery and she had been everything that Arya could never be. But while she had, in many ways, saved Sansa's very soul when she came to King's Landing, Sansa could never forget how she and her family had turned their back on her when she needed them the most. It made sense, of course it made sense, and she wasn't bitter, really. It was the smart thing to do once the Lannisters had discovered the Tyrell plot to spirit her away since the Tyrells were still interested in allying with the crown. Garlan had still spoken to her but Margaery was to marry the king. But they had turned their back on her, Margaery had turned her back on her, for their own gain.

Arya never would have done that.

"You may not be a proper lady," Sansa conceded, "though I've found few save Mother in the world and certainly less than I had thought when I first came to King's Landing. Queen Cersei, who I loved dearly, turned out to be anything but no matter what she looked like. But you, Arya, you are alive years after I gave you up for dead. How can you even think that you are not the sister I always wanted?"

That hit Arya hard and she swallowed reflexively. "Oh, Sansa, you don't even know."

It didn't matter, really. There was nothing that Arya could have possibly done that would take away from the fact that she was here and she was alive and she hadn't had half as bad a time as she could have. And what did that even say about their lives that this was Arya being lucky?

But Arya clearly needed her to hear it. "What, then?"

"Oh, where to begin?" Arya asked rhetorically. She stared resolutely at a point just above Sansa's head. "Lady, perhaps. I'm sorry for Lady."

Even after all this time, the mention of her beloved direwolf, gone too soon, sent a jolt of pain straight to her heart.

"Lady?" she repeated. "What do you have to be sorry for on behalf of Lady? Joffrey was the one who lied about what happened, Cersei was the one who insisted on killing Lady because she was there, King Robert was the one who didn't care enough to save my innocent wolf's life if it meant he had to listen to his wife's complaining, and Father-" her breath caught "-Father was the one too honorable to do anything but kill Lady as was commanded."

"I know," Arya said. Her gaze briefly met Sansa's before looking away again. "But why did they kill Lady? Because I sent Nymeria away. And I may not have had her either for a long time but I knew she was alive and I dreamed about her and now she's back with me."

"I can't blame you for saving your direwolf, Arya," Sansa said softly. "I wish I had been able to do the same. But, while Lady might have been a direwolf too, sometimes I wonder if she was just too much like me to survive out there. I never could have done what you did."

"And I never could have done what you did," Arya countered. "Staying with the monsters who killed Father and Mother and Robb? Smiling and listening to all the terrible things they said and pretending you didn't want to kill each and every one of them? I couldn't do it."

Sansa smiled at that. "Thank you. It wasn't…it was the only thing I could think of to do. And listen, Arya…I got to know Joffrey and his mother very well before I managed to get out of King's Landing. Even if you had done nothing and Nymeria was still around to be killed, I don't know that Cersei wouldn't have insisted on killing my wolf, too. Even if Nymeria had died, there's no guarantee Lady would have lived. And if you really think that Lady would have lived through Father's arrest…"

"I'm still sorry," Arya said stubbornly. "And that day, the day it happened, you told me to go with you and the queen and Princess Myrcella and be a proper lady and I knew that I ought to but I just didn't want to. I went off with Mycah instead and I ended up getting him killed and attacking Joffrey and I can't help but think that none of that would have happened if I had just done what I was supposed to and gone with you."

"Well," Sansa said slowly, not even sure what to say to that, "you might be right. If you had gone with me that day then that sequence of events might not have occurred. But Arya, just because that's true doesn't make it your fault. It might have been rude to refuse the queen's invitation but no one should have died over it. And no one would have died over it if that had been all it was. But Joffrey and I were exploring together and he wanted to laugh at you two until he realized you were my sister and then he just behaved abominably. No, a butcher's boy has no place attacking a lady but you clearly wanted to play-fight with him. He had no real training and Joffrey did and even if Mycah could have fought him he really couldn't have because Joffrey was a prince and it would be treason. He might have killed him, I really don't know. Joffrey was capable many terrible things, I don't even have to tell you. You were just trying to protect your friend. And then Joffrey was going to hurt you and how could Nymeria do anything but protect you? The fact that Mycah and Lady died for this and, if Cersei could get away with it, you might have been killed too isn't your fault and it never was."

"That-that's not what you said before," Arya said, frowning at her. "You and Jeyne kept blaming me and you lied about what happened in front of everybody."

"I didn't lie, exactly," Sansa said uncomfortably. "I said I didn't know."

"But you did," Arya said stubbornly.

"I was…I was eleven, Arya," Sansa said helplessly. "And I know that you were only nine but there I was, called before the king and queen and my future husband, and asked to choose between my sister and the man that I would marry."

"Father didn't ask you that!" Arya objected. "He just asked you to tell the truth."

But Sansa shook her head. "Nobody wanted the truth. Maybe you and Father but none of the rest. There were two versions of events and the night that you ran off I told Father what I saw."

"So then how didn't you know just a few days later?" Arya challenged.

"Because I loved Joffrey," Sansa said miserably. "Because I had to marry him even if I didn't so I loved him. Father never asked me and even if he had I wouldn't have truly understood. I wanted to be a queen, is all, and Joffrey was better at pretending when his father was alive."

"Not his father," Arya said pointedly.

"He thought he was," Sansa said simply. "I didn't know what to do. You were right but what kind of life would I be building with my future family if the first chance I got I didn't support my husband-to-be? And I couldn't understand Joffrey's behavior. It didn't match up to my picture of him and I didn't like it. I couldn't accept it. I didn't know what happened. And then, after I was forced to see the truth, I did know. Why do you think I blamed you? I told myself it wasn't Joffrey's fault Lady died because his mother ordered it. But his mother was the queen and I was to be her gooddaughter and I wanted so very badly to be like her and to be liked by her. It was easier blaming you for not behaving as you should. And I could see that you were upset by what happened, too, but all I could think about was how it was you and your friend who sparked the situation and your wolf still fled and…it was cruel of me and I'm sorry."

Arya was quiet for a moment. "It's alright," she offered finally. "I always blamed the Lannisters anyway."

That startled a small laugh out of her. "You were smarter than me, then."

"I didn't have to face living with them," Arya replied, shrugging. Her eyes turned serious again.

Sansa knew what that meant. "What else?"

"I managed to escape the Red Keep," Arya said. "I had to live on the streets for weeks. I don't even know how long. And I might have been there still if Yoren hadn't found me. I still don't know how he managed to see Arya of House Stark in me when no one else did and when I looked like any old beggar girl. I saw Father's death. Or rather…I didn't see that moment but I saw all the rest. I heard you screaming and I just let him take me away. I left you there with them and I got out."

Sansa smiled sadly. "Oh, Arya, what could you have done? It was a miracle that you weren't caught or killed as it is. I hardly expected you to go running in, sword swinging, to try and save me or Father."

"I almost did," Arya admitted. "I wasn't thinking. Yoren stopped me. He was right, I knew that, but I kind of wish he had anyway."

"You would have been killed," Sansa said simply. "And maybe no one would have even known who you were. They certainly weren't looking to kill you just then. They wanted the both of us as hostages to trade to Robb."

Arya sighed. "I was a hostage for quite a while for just that reason. And yet…"

Sansa sighed as well. She couldn't have known why and so she wanted to put the best face on it that she could. She yet lived and was safe now and Robb had died horribly. Where was the room for blame and accusations? "And yet."

"I thought that I hated you, you know," Arya told her. "But I didn't."

"I know," Sansa said quietly. "I thought I hated you and I think we were lucky for it."

That puzzled her. "Lucky?"

"We didn't understand what hatred really was back then," Sansa said. "Then Joffrey had our father killed and I never mistook our fighting for hatred ever again."

"Me either," Arya said, nodding. "We were so stupid."

"We were naïve," Sansa corrected. "We just had too wonderful of a family and were surrounded by too good of people. How could we know what monsters could be found in the rest of the world?"

"It's not just the North as good people," Arya told her. "We all heard about the Boltons and I thought that all of Robb's forces would be good but I…was quickly made aware that that wasn't the case. When Lord Bolton conquered the, uh, place I was at I thought of telling him who I was. It seemed the best way to get back home or at least to Mother and Robb."

Sansa paled. Roose Bolton would have just loved to get his hands on Arya.

"I know, I know," Arya said, looking embarrassed. "But he was such a monster from the very first. You don't even want to know what he did, what he ordered, what he allowed. I got lucky, actually. He took a liking to me and I was his cupbearer and it could have been so much worse. But I didn't say anything and I couldn't believe in the North as a whole after that but I never stopped believing in Robb."

"I've never stopped believing," Sansa admitted. "Even after."

The two of them stood there in silence for a long moment before Arya seemed to shake herself. "I didn't understand it when you were smiling. It was the first time I'd seen Father since I think he told us to get ready to leave to go back home and he looked so terrible. He was accused of treason and right up until the point that Joffrey said he was going to take Father's head you were smiling. And not just your 'I'm smiling because I feel I have to' smile, you looked really happy."

Sansa closed her eyes and tried not to let the shame of it consume her.

"I was happy," she whispered. "I was a fool and I was happy. I did try to ask what was going on. I did try to tell them it must be some big misunderstanding. They didn't tell me that Father had discovered Cersei's treason, of course, because if Stannis hadn't told everybody they would have liked to keep that truth unspoken. But Cersei used me. She knew I was naïve and didn't understand my true position. She used me to write a letter to Mother and Robb that, looking back, made it clear I was a hostage. She told me Joffrey loved me and I believed her. I begged him to spare my father out of his love for me and…you have to understand, Arya, that he did agree!"

Arya slowly nodded. "I know. He told the crowd that you and his mother wanted him to send Father to the Night's Watch and everyone looked shocked when he said to kill him instead so he must have lied."

"How could I have known?" Sansa asked tiredly. "He never fooled me again but he fooled me that day. I know it wouldn't have been ideal and our father wouldn't have deserved to be sent to the Night's Watch but he would live and it would be honorable. Jon would be there and Robb could be the Lord of Winterfell and Father could have visited like Uncle Benjen did and I could marry Joffrey and one day, far in the future, Father could even come to court and we could just forget…I was a fool. I know better now. So yes, I was happy. I was happy that Joffrey loved me and I had saved Father."

Arya looked uncertain of what to say. "Sansa…"

Sansa willed her nerves to steady. "It doesn't matter. I was wrong and I soon learned that."

"I killed a man," Arya offered awkwardly. "Well, actually I've killed a lot. I've tried to only kill those that deserve it. I killed a man the day I escaped from the Red Keep, though. I was trying to get a horse to flee and the stable boy recognized me and he knew that Father was arrested and he was going to bring me to the Lannisters and I just…" She offered a sheepish smile. "I stuck him with the pointy end."

Sansa couldn't imagine doing anything of the kind. And yet, hadn't she threatened Ser Dontos that night that he had come to her in the Godswood? But would she ever have actually done it? Maybe that was why Arya had gotten away and she had been forced to rely on Littlefinger and just moved to a different cage, really.

"I am certain you only killed those that you had to," Sansa said simply.

"How do you know?"

"Because I know you, Arya," Sansa said. "You would fight a prince to defend a butcher's boy no one else cared the slightest for. You never cared a whit that Jon was a bastard. You never let what you were supposed to do dictate your behavior in any way, really. Of course you wouldn't do anything too awful. You don't have it in you."

Arya smiled tremulously at her. "Thank you."

"Now is that everything you feel you must apologize for or do you want to maybe apologize for filling my mattress with sheep dung?" Sansa asked.

Arya crossed her arms. "You can't prove that was me."

Sansa smiled. "I take it that's a no. Good. Because if this is how it's going to be then I have some things that I need to apologize to you for as well."

Arya shook her head. "Sansa…it's fine."

"And it was fine for me, too, but you still said it so let me have my turn," Sansa said firmly. "Arya, I know I wasn't the sister you wanted, either. I know that I was always the proper lady people expected and that you had siblings like you in our brothers but I think I was rather unkind to you growing up. I don't-I don't think I was horrible but I could have been kinder and I could have made my friends be kinder."

"I don't care about that anymore," Arya claimed but Sansa didn't believe that for a second.

"And even if I had been kinder, I was always so good at everything young ladies are supposed to be good at," Sansa said. "And you simply weren't. It didn't occur to me when I was younger that it wasn't just a matter of you not trying enough. That you were good at some things that clearly kept you alive on the run but you could never be the proper lady I had such an easy time being. And it's true that we didn't really hate each other but given how much pain we both went through later, I wish we could have been closer growing up."

"I wish that, too," Arya agreed. "But that's just one on a pretty lengthy list and we can't change the past."

"Well," Sansa said, "I can at least promise I won't call you Arya Horseface anymore."

"I don't actually think that would be accurate anymore."

Sansa tilted her head. "From what I remember it wasn't accurate then. You did look odd, yes, but not really very horse-like."

Arya laughed. "Oh, now you tell me!"

"Well I assumed you had a mirror!" Sansa shot back, grinning.

"Nasty things, those. I never did like to get close to them."

"I'm sorry that I didn't support you when it came to that fight you had with Joffrey," Sansa said earnestly.

"You already told me why you didn't and I understand," Arya said kindly.

Sansa smiled sadly. "I know. But I'm still sorry and I know that your friend was already dead but maybe if I'd been braver, Lady…but there's no use chasing ghosts. I'm sorry that I made it worse for you by blaming you. It wasn't fair."

"I do forgive you for that," Arya told her. "I forgave you for it ages ago."

"I'm glad," Sansa said. "I didn't even really think about how much I was hurting you but I've had a lot of time to regret how I handled…well, a lot of things, really. I'm sorry that I said those horrible things to you the last time I saw you. I'm sorry that, when Cersei told me that Father had been arrested for treason, it took me hours before I thought to inquire after you. And I'm sorry that you even had to go on the run in the first place."

That puzzled her. "Sansa, your whole life had just been turned upside-down, same as mine. I don't blame you for not thinking to worry about me on top of everything else. But why would you apologize for me fleeing? It was better than staying with the Lannisters, you know how I likely would have ended up there and that's IF they didn't kill me for not playing along like you did. It's not good that it happened but it's not your fault."

"In a way, it was," Sansa admitted, leaning forward and allowing her hair to fall into her face.

"I don't understand."

"I was always the good girl, always," Sansa admitted distantly. "I always did what Mother and Father said. Except that day. That one day when it really counted. What difference did it make, at the end of it all, whether I went to bed when I was bid to or stayed in with Septa Mordane and sewed instead of running off to watch a colt being born? Your little acts of disobedience didn't ruin lives."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Arya said bluntly. "But I can't imagine that you did anything all that bad. I mean…you're Sansa. Perfect lady Sansa. How could you even?"

Sansa laughed bitterly. "Well I did and it all went horribly wrong. Father told me that I had to go to Winterfell and that I couldn't marry Joffrey after all and it was everything I ever wanted or was convinced that I wanted. I loved King's Landing and couldn't bear to lose it all and go back home to Winterfell. The thought that I wouldn't want to go to Winterfell! I can't even imagine it now but it was true. But I tried to be good. I asked only to say goodbye to my love. Father refused and I know why now. He was sneaking us away so we wouldn't be caught up in his challenging the Lannisters. And I ruined it."

Arya was inhumanly still. "Sansa, what did you do?"

"I ran to the queen. I told her everything," Sansa admitted. This time she was the one unable to look at her sister. "I didn't know much. I just knew that you and I were being sent away and suddenly I was not to marry her son after all and I begged her to intercede with Father. She thanked me and called me a good girl and said she would take care of it and then she sent a guard to take me away. I didn't go back to our rooms and I didn't have any idea what was going on until poor Jeyne told me. I still don't know why they spared her. They didn't spare anyone else."

"Sansa," Arya said. "Sansa, look at me."

Reluctantly, Sansa did. Arya's eyes were kind.

"It wasn't your fault."

"How can you say that?" Sansa demanded. "I know that I'm not the one who ordered the massacre and I know that maybe people would have died anyway but maybe I was the one who tipped Cersei off that Father knew something or was preparing to act against her. Maybe I got him killed. I know I'm the one who stopped us from getting away. Think of it. Even if Father had still died we would have been safe at Winterfell!"

"You know nothing of the sort!" Arya objected. "If this had been a normal situation and there hadn't been incest and questions about the line of succession then do you know all that would have happened? Father would have sent you back regardless and Cersei would have had to have known he wasn't going to marry you to Joffrey sooner or later so she might be mad but she couldn't do anything about it. Breaking a betrothal can cause problems but it's hardly treason. You telling her Father was sending us away might have stopped us from getting away but maybe it wouldn't have. She clearly knew something more than what you knew to kill everybody and arrest Father. And you were only a little girl. You didn't know everything. Father didn't even tell us that it was important we not tell anybody we were leaving. You trusted someone you were told you were supposed to trust and she betrayed you. It was never your fault!"

Sansa hadn't known just how much she had needed to hear that until that very moment. Intellectually, she had always known her sister was right and yet she had never quite been able to shake the guilty feelings.

"Even if we had gotten on that ship, how long do you think Father could have hidden our being gone from King's Landing?" Arya continued. "How long would he have waited to make his move? Who is to say the Lannister fleet wouldn't have caught up to us and dragged us back?"

"I don't think they could have caught us," Sansa said. "Father was too smart to sneak us out of the city and be obvious about it. We would have been home. When you disappeared, I thought you had made it home. I was…I was jealous."

Arya laughed. "I wish I had made it home. There was nothing to be jealous about from my journey, believe me, though I did meet some very important people."

Important meaning dear because powerful people had never really interested Arya.

"And even if we had made it home, you think that would have made it a happy ending?" Arya demanded. "Mother and Robb never would have taken us to war. We would have been there when Theon arrived."

"So?" Sansa asked. "Bran and Rickon managed to escape and Bran can't walk and Rickon was four."

"The more of us there were the better the odds we'd be caught," Arya said. "And don't tell me you don't believe Theon would just marry you to try and secure Winterfell."

Sansa hadn't let herself dwell on what being home might actually mean and so that hadn't occurred to her. "He wouldn't."

"Are you so sure?" Arya challenged. "He did a lot of things we never thought he'd do and none of us really trusted him all that much. But apparently we trusted him more than we thought."

Sansa shook her head. "It didn't happen. It doesn't matter."

"No, I suppose not," Arya agreed. "Just remember that as bad as things got for us, it could have gotten worse. And nothing you did makes what the Lannisters did your fault. You didn't know and it wasn't your fault."

Sansa wanted to believe that was true. Most days she did. "None of it was your fault, either."

"So we're just a pair of blameless young women," Arya concluded. "Well, I'm glad we got that settled then."

Sansa laughed. "But of course. What else could we be?"

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Arya said seriously. "I hoped that I would but I didn't truly believe it. I quickly wanted to see any member of my family again, even you. At least I never had to think you were dead."

"I did think you were dead and it hurt just as much as thinking Bran and Rickon were dead and knowing that Robb and Mother and Father were dead," Sansa said, squeezing her eyes shut. She felt a hand slip into hers and she looked questioningly at her sister.

"Well I'm not dead and neither are three of our brothers and that's more than we thought we had not long ago," Arya said. "This war took a lot from us but it couldn't take everything."

"We are Starks," Sansa said, remembering the mantra she had repeated to herself every day since the death of her father. "We can be strong."

"I don't know if I can ever forgive the Lannisters," Arya admitted. "I really don't want to and I think that's the biggest problem. And there's a lot of other people who I might not go and kill but won't forgive either. Everyone says I'd be happier if I could and maybe they're right but I just can't."

"Maybe you will eventually," Sansa offered. "Or maybe you'll make peace with it. Maybe it will be enough to just never see them again."

"Have you forgiven them?" Arya asked curiously.

Sansa shook her head. "No. But then, I don't blame all of them, just the ones who did these things. I hope that one day I will but until then I'm trying to make peace with the fact that I haven't."

"If I never hear the word 'Lannister' again it will be too soon," Arya decided.

"When we were little I always wanted a sister to hold my hand but you never wanted to," Sansa remarked. "You never even wanted to be around me most of the time."

"I'm pretty sure you didn't want to be around me," Arya argued.

Sansa shrugged. "So maybe it was both of us. But look at us now."

Arya glanced down in surprise. "Huh." She didn't remove her hand. "We're not going to have to start getting along all the time now, right? I mean, I'm really happy you're not dead and I missed you but I think that if I had to follow along and be a perfect lady now – especially now – then I couldn't do it. It might just kill me."

Sansa laughed. "It would be a shame to have survived everything that you did survive only to die from too much agreeableness! No, I think that's quite unreasonable. Father told us he was sick of us waging a war against each other and not acting like sisters but I rather think he didn't know how sisters reacted. Or siblings at all by that time with Uncle Brandon and Aunt Lyanna so long dead and Uncle Benjen visiting so rarely."

"Well now that you've decided we can still fight I don't even know if I want to," Arya said, furrowing her brow.

Sansa nodded. "Getting along sometimes is fine, too."

"I'll get along if I want to get along," Arya said stubbornly, tagging half-heartedly at her hand.

Despite herself, Sansa smiled. She felt younger than she had in years. "I missed you."

"I'm being emotionally manipulated," Arya complained. "Somebody send help."

"Come," Sansa said, leading Arya away. "We shall seek help together."

"Help from you and your emotionally manipulative ways?" Arya asked as she followed willingly enough. "Sansa, I don't think you're doing this right."

"Probably not," Sansa said agreeably.

Arya threw back her head and groaned.

It was good to have her back.