A/N: Updated: I don't like long author's notes so this is the tldr version of the last one: this story begins after Sansa's arrival at Winterfell in season 5 and continues from there. I hope you enjoy my first foray into the world of fanfiction! Please review and critique :)

A/N: Updated. Again: Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed, it means a lot to me! One reviewer questioned why Sansa would remember Theon so fondly after his betrayal of her family, which made me realise I forgot to mention a rather important point: In this AU Sansa doesn't know about Theon's betrayal yet, but fear not! This slight complication in their relationship will not be ignored and is going to be an important point in coming chapters. I hope this clears up any confusion about her attitude towards him at the beginning of this story.

Disclaimer: I don't own the thing.

Chapter 1: Back at the Start

Maybe it was the presence of the Boltons, but the home of Sansa's childhood seemed dark and dead. The harsh wind bit at exposed skin. The light pink of the few blossoms that still clung to the brittle branches of the trees looked ashen and faded, like the cheek of a starving man, and the dark clouds circled like monstrous vultures.

This new Winterfell would be Sansa's home again once she was married to Ramsay Bolton. The mere thought made her stomach clench and brought a vile taste rushing to her mouth. As lightly as she had spoken about "being a married woman" to Littlefinger, she knew that being wed to Ramsay Bolton might as well be a death sentence. She knew what he was capable of, everyone in the North knew about "The Bastard of the Boltons" and the depravities he committed.

Things had been better since she had escaped King's Landing and Joffrey had died. That thought brought a sick smile to her face. Joffrey's death was the only flicker of light in the interminable darkness. Yes, things had been better, but not much. At the Eyrie she had exchanged the brutality and politics of Joffrey's court for the tainted sweetness of Littlefinger's "friendship". She submitted to his desires, let him kiss her and touch her while whispering her mother's name because it kept her safe. In King's Landing she had learned that this world was not about gallant knights and fair maidens and true love, it was about survival.

Eyes hardened and her mouth set in a firm, thin line, she ran one hand along the rough, wooden railing as she looked out over the courtyard where she used to watch Robb, Jon, and Theon practice swordplay and archery. And Arya would sulk in the shadows unless the boys allowed her to join in.

Now, Robb was dead. Walder Frey will pay for what he did, Sansa said to herself once again. She repeated that thought like a prayer whenever she thought of her mother, her brother, and the sister she never met.

She had not heard from Jon since he'd been sent to the Wall. For years at Winterfell she had taken up her mother's cold treatment of her half-brother, and now he might be the only family she had left. What she wouldn't give to see him and be able to make up for all those years of resentment? She vowed that if she ever saw Jon Snow again she would treat him like her brother and her friend, like Arya had always done.

And Arya? She hadn't heard of any of her younger siblings since Arya disappeared from King's Landing. Cersei and the Crown had only given her news from the North on a need-to-know basis, and there wasn't much they felt the dumb Stark girl needed to know.

Finally, her thoughts turned to Theon, as they did more often than she would like to admit. Part of her felt guilty that she dwelt more on the Ironborn than any of her own siblings, but she couldn't help it. Unbidden, his stormy blue eyes and confident smirk would appear in her mind and her tender heart would flinch despite its carefully built walls.

They had had a close friendship, something both her parents had frowned upon. Theon was Ned's ward and to be raised as one of their own, but no-one was ever allowed to forget why he was really there. Never mind that he had just been a boy when he was taken from his father, he was a Greyjoy and that was enough.

Still they had been friends, Sansa's only small act of defiance towards her parents. Friends and maybe more. Sansa had thought, or hoped, at times that he might have had feelings for her. Just a few hints: small moments, silent glances, and one stolen kiss unlike anything she had endured from Joffrey or Petyr. Even the thought of it now warmed her in the bitter cold that signaled the coming winter.

Alone in the Godswood, he had taken her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers. It had been heated and tender at the same time, and afterwards what a look he had given her. As she felt her cheeks flushing and her eyes sparkling and her lips about to brim over with words describing everything she felt for him, he had looked at her with such a burning, desperate longing. And then he had run, nearly making her fall over in his haste, as the support for her weak kneed giddiness vanished.

The next day when she went to speak to him, she had found him polishing his saddle with a vengeance of pent-up anger. She could recall every single detail as clear as though she was reliving the moment, which she had a hundred times. She softly called his name as she approached, reaching out to touch him.

"Don't," he said in a hard tone. Her hand stopped mid-air and without looking up he said in cold, measured words, "It is wrong for a man to pursue what he can never have." He threw down his rag and without so much as a glance at her fallen face, he marched out of the stable leaving her hurt and confused.

Then he had started his mission to sleep with every whore and serving maid in the surrounding villages and Sansa had forgotten about her crushed heart to focus on the exciting proposition of a proposal from the Crown Prince.

But Sansa always wondered, what if she had done something different? Been more persistent? Or at least told him her feelings?

And where was her Prince now? Had he returned to his family and the Iron Isles? Was he standing at the helm of one of the Greyjoys' ships, the wind running through his soft, brown curls? She prayed to the Seven almost nightly that he was, and for good measure whispered a prayer to his Drowned God as well.

She had no right to think of Theon as her Prince, she reminded herself. She might not know what had become of him, but she knew exactly where her Lord was she thought bitterly as the hated form of Ramsay Bolton began to climb the steps towards where she was standing.

"Lost in thought, my lady?" Sansa put on her prettiest mask as she turned from the railing to take his arm.

"Just thinking how glad I am that I shall be wed in Winterfell and to a man of the North and not shipped off to somewhere far away." It was partially true, once upon a time she had entertained fantasies of fair, Southern knights embodied by Joffrey and Loras, but those dreams had been poisoned long ago.

"Funny, don't most maidens dream of being swept up by a prince and carried off to Dorne or some such place?"

"I am not most maidens, my lord." Ramsay eyed her hungrily and he gripped her hand too tightly in a way that made her heart race with fear. All she wanted to do was run away from him and not stop until she reached the coast or the Wall, but the grin that spread across his face told her that at least for now she was winning. He was smitten with her, and while that lasted he would not harm her.

"You most certainly are not."

Sansa walked in silence, painfully aware of Ramsay's glaze raking across her carefully composed face. But as the pair moved along the upper level, neither noticed Ramsay's dirty, broken servant watching them intently with dull eyes that had once been as clear and fierce as the waves in Ironman's Bay.