She had been so lost in the paperwork on the desk, spilling over registers for the nearby villages, taxing decrees, and the armory's inventory. With Ghost asleep at her feet, and the fire raging in the hearth Sansa had barley noticed voices drifting in from the window overlooking the courtyard below, but was jolted from her thoughts with the sound of shouts.
"Open the gates!" A guardsman yelled. It was distant, but Sansa's stomach lurched just the same as if it had been shouted right next to her ear. Ghost shot up, moving to the door. Sansa's quill almost fell from her hands, but she placed in back in its hold before it could shake ink onto the important documents she'd drafted. There was a curt knock on the door of the Lord's study.
She took in a breath, eyeing the direwolf pacing by the door. His hot breath visible on the cold handle, his whine mirroring what she felt in her chest. She took a moment to compose herself so it did not sound in her response, "Yes, Warrek."
The door opened and the pageboy's head peaked in for a moment before the door broke from his grasp, swinging completely open as the wolf ran down the hallway. Both the boy and Sansa watched on as Ghost disappeared around the corner before Warrek took a step into the room, "M'lady,"
She stood, smoothing down her winter gown as she did so, "I suppose they've arrived then."
"Yes m'lady," Warrek nodded, his tone far more nervous than usual. She had never imagined herself intimidating, perhaps she had tried to emulate such a behavior in the past, but Winterfell would be the last place she would act as such. It must be something else, she thought, it must be because of them.
She nodded as well, more so due to her own nerves, gesturing for him to follow her from the study and down the long hallway, "And they are all here. The soldiers, the Dothraki, the…"
Warrek answered the unasked question Sansa left in the air between them, "The dragons."
"Right," The word dragging out in a single breath. Sansa never imagined in her wildest dreams this would be a conversation she'd have beyond childhood. But then again, in these past few months a lot of things had come into her life she would have never imagined. She had learned long ago that to survive was to adapt, to accept one's circumstance and use it to one's advantage. This would have to be another one of those lessons.
"And Jon," She asked. Her hands intertwined in front of her skirts. She tried to straighten her shoulders, look the part of the Lady of Winterfell. Jon had trusted her with that. Had given her his command, and now more than ever was she determined to appear strong in her title. To prove herself worthy of his trust, and perhaps show her guests that the North already has its protector. That Jon may have been gone, but Sansa had done well to hold it for him in his absence. More days than not Arya had commented on how late Sansa had been in their father's study, how tired she looked in the morning. It was for Jon, she had thought day after day, to ensure that his claim was well received, respected. Having heard that he bent the knee, and to a foreign queen, it had nearly broken her spirit, Arya's as well. But she is not they young girl she once was. She's learned, and she knows how this game is played.
"The Lord is standing on his own from what I hear Lady Stark," Warrek smiled. "It's been a long journey, loads of time to heal."
"Thank you." Sansa tentatively returned the smile before parting ways with the boy whom she was sure was on his way to inform Arya, or Bran if they hadn't already heard. She took one final moment before stepping out into the winter day, and the chaos of the courtyard. Sansa used it to take in a breath of cold air, filling her lungs with the physical reminder of her home, her family, and all that she has spent years fighting to get back to. She fisted her hands in her skirts, she will not seem weak in front of these southern invaders, she will not let the party she's allowed behind her walls forget that while Jon has bent, the North will not. She will not.
Horses, dozens of them, were being led to the stables, boxes stacked against the castle walls with rough grunts. Men crowding around; groups of stable hands, blacksmiths, and swordsmen mixing with the foreign soldiers. It took her only one sweep of the yard to find him. His dark curls distinguishable beside the familiar grey of sir Davos, and she watched on as Jon was rubbing the soft spot behind Ghost's ear, and rubbing the fur of his back as Maester Wolkan greeted him with a pat on the back, and a shake of the hand. Sansa's stomach clenched, would their smiles be so wide if any of them knew what Jon had written to her in those scrolls. For now their King had returned. Later they will deal with the consequences of his decisions in the South. Littlefinger knew, but with him died the truth of Jon's betrayal. And Sansa has kept it to herself since.
Seeing him now though, all of that worry faded away. He was home.
"Jon." She let out. It was a whisper; almost like a prayer. Faith may have felt lost to her, but prayers were different, they were the words of the hopeful, or perhaps the desperate. Either way Sansa had spent this time without him praying. Praying that, unlike her father and his father before him, Jon may return from the South. And here he was.
She had said it so quietly it was lost to the loud chatter of the men, and the hooves of the horses on the cobblestone, but her presence as Lady of Winterfell was commanding and it wasn't long before Jon saw her as she saw him, their eyes finding one another's across the yard.
She stepped out into the courtyard, out into the crowd, which was parting for her as she passed. Men she knew, and many she did not, bowing their heads out of respect. She barely took notice, instead it felt as though she was able to breath properly for the first time in months, a weight having shifted somewhere in her chest. Sansa couldn't have described the feeling, but whatever it was, it brought the truest smile to her lips.
As she stepped toward him, and he to her, she felt every pang of emotion of these past months course through her veins. The sense of anguish she had felt as he left, the fear of being alone again in this cold castle, the hope that filled her in having Bran and Arya home; the sadness that Jon was not here to greet them, the worry for his safety, the way her skin crawled under the eye of Petyr, the liberation his absence brought, even the heat of Jon's betrayal, and the fear when they'd heard of his injury. It all melted into a sense of relief, in seeing him, knowing he was well, that he was home. That she could just reach out her arms.
And suddenly then, in the space between those arms, the space that had had held so much pain and fear, he was there.
His face finding the crook of her neck, she could feel him let out a breath as he fell into her embrace. Her face burying in his furs, taking in the warmth of his arms across her back, the smell of home still clinging to his clothes. Her eyes felt like they could close, she hadn't realized how tired they were until now, the relief she felt weighing her down in his arms. She didn't want to think of the wars to come, of the dead, or of Cersei, but life was never quiet as kind as Sansa had hoped it to be.
Her gaze flashed up, catching from the corner of her eye something she'd thought she'd never see.
The Dragon Queen. Her eyes locked with Sansa's. Her hair was as silver as everyone had always promised Targaryen hair to be. Her eyes a colour Sansa couldn't name, but they felt piercing. As though just her look was hot on Sansa's skin.
"Jon!" It was Arya, she looked young as she rushed across the muddy yard, Bran not far behind her. Both Sansa and Jon stepped aside, letting her run up, flinging her arms around Jon's neck. The Dragon Queen suddenly far from her mind as Ghost howled into the winter sky, Sansa hadn't realized she was laughing until Jon's eyes met hers and she saw her own joy mirrored in his.
"The last time I saw you," Jon ruffled Arya's hair, and she instinctively brushed his hand aside. "you hugged me just like that."
Arya looked as though she was trying to find something to say, but the years have been so vast, and so much has happened to them all between then and now. Sansa brought her hand to embrace her sister's, smiling down at her with a sense of bliss she could barely contain. After so many years apart, it felt almost impossible that her heart could feel so much like the young girl's who had watched on as her siblings played together in this courtyard, as mother and father had shouted their encouragement from the very galleries she now walked alone. It was strange to feel both so terribly sad, and so joyful all at once.
Jon turned to kneel before Bran's chair, which rolled up to them in near silence, Ghost taking his place at Jon's side. Sansa watched a sad smile form on Jon's face.
"I am grateful our goodbye was not the last," Jon squeezed Bran's hand before standing to kiss him on the forehead. Sansa would not have been so bold, but then again, Jon had so much yet to learn of Bran and Arya's respective journeys. As she suppose they did of his. But for now, in this moment, they were not simply the last Stark's of Winterfell - they were together. And no matter what they had to face, they would be side by side in the storm to come.