Notes: Did I cheat with this? Absolutely? Did it achieve its purpose? Hopefully.
Written for brienne on tumblr for the Jonsa Gift Exchange. The theme was mythology and this is based on the myth of Pygmalion, more in symbolism than anything else.
She's always so careful, so put together. As a child, Jon had always found it slightly disconcerting and had channelled that emotion into the occasional teasing that if made to, Sansa could sit as still as the statues in her family tomb for hours and wouldn't mind it in the slightest. Quite on the contrary, actually – her patience had seemed to never run out, or so he'd said to her once. Much to his dismay, she had taken it as a challenge and had then proceeded to glare at him from her place at the dinner table every evening, either unaware or too proud to admit that she'd been proving his point all along as Lady Stark scolded her every time she got into yet another conflict with Arya.
It had been fun at first, even with Father occasionally intervening to berate them all for the constant squabbling. Later, as they had grown older, it had just become sad. Jon's relationship with his half-sister hadn't been too close and he had never quite mastered the same annoyed indifference that Arya seemed to feel towards the situation, but it had still been nearly painful to watch; seeing Sansa agree and submit to every little thing she was told for the sake of achieving a future that had never seemed quite like her own goal, more like a stitched-together version of the wishes of everyone who had ever tutored her.
It's all the sadder now, whenever Jon finds himself thinking about her (and he does that often, because the nights are long and cold and dark and only grow more so as the winter approaches and in his memories, she's always been a stark line of fire in every way possible in the middle of even the most hopeless moments). It's sadder still for the way it had turned out. She'd always been so eager to please, to follow the path set out for her and it's not fair that what she had worked for all her life had suddenly betrayed her like this. That's the worst thing about it, really, the thing that keeps him up at night no matter how often he tries to remind himself that her fate is not up to him at all and that she's as far away from him as she can get – that she'd done everything right and had still ended up a glorified hostage.
o.O.o
(Years later, when Jon hears about Joffrey's death and Sansa's supposed daring escape, it makes him as incredulous as it makes him happy. She's free now, wherever she is, and she's alive and somehow, that's all that matters. The stories about how she ran away are almost amusing when they finally reach the Wall – he tries to imagine her leaving King's Landing at night in the shape of a wolf, Lady herself, perhaps; tries to imagine her flying out of the highest towers like the witch she's said to be and although Jon doesn't believe any of it, the images that the rumours put in his mind are reassuring. It's comforting to hear the mix of admiration and fear that they carry in people's voices and to know that he's not the only one capable of seeing it – whatever Sansa does next, wherever she reappears, Jon will be waiting.)
o.O.o
For a while, it feels as if the last shreds of his family have fallen off the face of the world. Jon tries not to dwell too much on the ones he knows for sure that he's lost and prefers instead to hold on to the sliver of possibility that the rest of them (Sansa, it's just her at this point if he's honest with himself and Jon prefers to be, even when it breaks his heart; it's just her and that's enough) hold.
Except there's barely anything to work with.
There are conflicted reports, really; once Jon becomes Lord Commander, he discovers that it's easy to have access to all sorts of information that nearly no one else can easily get their hands on. There are people who claim to have seen Sansa at one point or another, but no one seems to dare to make that an official statement. And Jon understands, he really does – theirs is a dangerous time to live in, even more so if you claim to have seen – or helped – a fugitive. Because that's what she is now – his closest remaining person in the world is on the run, could be in danger, and there's nothing Jon can do about it.
That notion alone, unsurprisingly, is just as infuriating as it had been the first time around. It always feels like this when he finds himself powerless, especially when it's about helping someone else, but it's even more intensified now, because Jon is not just powerless – he is alone. The thought leaves him colder than he's ever felt before.
Despite the vows he had given when he had first joined the Watch, Jon can't remember the last time he's sent a genuine prayer to any god he had ever heard people talk about – old or new – and it's an almost forgotten ritual when he does it now; it feels like something that he should have grown out of already and he can't even pinpoint why that is. It's just that the gods have rarely answered his prayers before, he supposes; who's to say that they would listen now?
But it's his only chance. And Sansa— for all he knows, she could be dead already, but it's not like he can check for himself or search the Seven Kingdoms until he finds where she's hiding (if that's what's happening in the first place; it's all wishful thinking on his part and it's altogether too easy to forget that). So instead, Jon prays and does it more fervently than he ever has in his life before. She might as well already be a statue back at Winterfell, or could have been if it hadn't been for the Boltons, but the entire time as he makes his way to the Weirwood and looks up at its countless branches, that's not how Jon imagines her. He thinks of her laughing and thriving under the already weakening rays of the sun, like she had been the last time he had seen her.
It feels like a lifetime ago and Jon is knee-deep in snow and freezing to the core. And still, he prays.
o.O.o
(When he sees her again, years and an entire new life later, Sansa is shaken and tired from the trip, but so relieved, so glad to finally be safe. There are countless unspoken questions between them, but when he takes her in his arms, she's warm and breathing and more alive than he could hope to remember and Jon holds on to her tighter than a tree's roots cling to earth in spring).