I haven't written anything in months, and this is my first attempt at anything remotely related to this fandom so... Let's go gently. Also, it's amazing this isn't smut or completely devastating angst because those are kind of my specialties. ;) Anyway... Enjoy!
It Would Be So Sweet
Sansa Stark is not who she used to be. She does not dream of weddings and princes and songs. She no longer wishes for new things, for gifts and smiles and compliments.
She only requests that what was taken from her, from her family, be returned; love and home and safety.
She had once been idealistic and hopeful that the notion of a happily ever after would be possible for her. A sheltered youth promised her as much, and she was often dazed by the prospect of princes and knights and festivities in her honour. Once, she had adored the notion of love. Once, she'd been a fool.
Love, the kind she had once yearned so strongly for, had once prayed and pleaded with the gods to find to save her from misery, simply didn't exist for people like her.
She had decided this when her heart was fragile and her eyes burnt from the salt of her repeated tears, when her family had been removed from her, piece by piece. She had learnt this when her belly was pressed to a mattress by a madman, and the home of her youth, the home she so longed to return to, had been the birthplace of a whole new set of nightmares.
But it was home, still, and it was hers.
Winterfell may be in the hands of a sadist, in the hands of the man she calls husband and the torturer she calls bastard, but it belonged to her family.
She had once taught herself that men needn't be lowborn to be bastards. The way one was raised, or even born, played little to no part in the way men saw her.
Joffrey had been presented as highborn, but the truth behind his parentage was no mystery to her, and she had never been able to think of him as anything other than a bastard after the repeated inflictions he sentenced her to endure.
The monster she called husband was no true husband, no true fighter or lover, at least not in the way she'd known her father to be to her mother. Her mother had loved him, despite his frequent bouts of foolishness and his honour much too dear to him.
The monster she called husband was not gentle, was not passionate the way her younger self craved so. The man she wed made her ache, the kind of aching that almost had her begging for mercy, for death.
But she was stronger than that, than dying and succumbing to lunacy. She was stronger than that because she had taught herself to be.
Sansa Stark had been a child much too young to understand just how cruel the world she once longed to rule could be.
Sansa Lannister had been a mirage of who she once wanted to be, of a lady with a title and a highborn husband.
Sansa Bolton had been somebody's toy, a plaything for the living, breathing incarnation of hell.
Sansa Stark was born anew, with the bones of a wolf and steel for skin.
Scars would haunt her, but the dried blood stains would vanish one day, and the scars would lose their meaning, and if they no longer meant anything, then he would no longer mean anything. Not that he ever did. Not that he ever would.
She had played the role of bastard, she had feigned impurity and darkness, but somehow her demons had crept out from beneath her act and infiltrated her skin, penetrated her being and turned her into something colder than Winterfell itself.
A man needn't be a lowborn to be a bastard, to murder and rape and steal and lie. A man needn't be a highborn to be gentle, to be compassionate. Her world was no longer black and white, rather an array of colours with a blotch of black splayed across the middle, the dark colour revealing itself to be a castle in her dreams.
She travels with her saviours, says her goodbyes with Theon somewhere in the forest, and she hopes he will make it back to Iron Islands alive, well, breathing.
They move as fast as they can, at least as fast as could be expected for three people in heavy snowfall with no real protection against the harsh winter chills.
She is cold at night, though Podrick sets a fire and Brienne's large frame casts a warm shadow over her tired body. She aches, from pain and freedom and the cold all at once. She shivers, her feet shifting involuntarily and the palms of her hands rubbing together as though she were seated on the hearth.
Her eyes drift to a close every night, for all the nights they travel and she loses track of, her eyelashes sweeping across the tops of her cheeks with a frozen flicker. All she sees is black, a black view with nothing to attract her attention. The first night, she doesn't dream, and she wonders why this is. But the second night comes, and the pitch black she feels closing in on her opens in on a grey building, dark and misty, and she can imagine snow flakes falling on the bridge of her nose, dancing along her icy skin and adding to the fondness in her heart for snow.
The snows fall, and the grey she had been trying to scratch detail into turns out to be a castle, though it isn't much of a castle at all. The walls are made of battered bricks, the rest a construction of wood and metal.
Castle Black is what she dreams of on the third night, and the image she makes up of her bastard brother stood in snow has her wishing this dream never ends.
His black hair crunched at his heavy shoulders, he wears all black, leather and fur, but his smile is what retains her attention. She is surprised by this, having witnessed most of his youthful smiles directed at her sister, their sister who shared a closer bond to him than she could ever hope to.
She never envied her back then. Arya had never called him half-brother. To her, he was family and that was that.
Arya had never reminded everyone that he was a bastard when they'd forgotten his place. Arya had said her goodbyes when he'd departed for the Wall, departed for a lifetime of isolation and keeping and quasi solitude.
Sansa had been too proud to even say goodbye to him, to even smile in his direction or cast him a second glance when he'd looked her way. She'd noticed him that day, found herself wishing for his well-being, but she'd never dared hug him or kiss him on the cheek. What would her mother have thought?
She had never envied Arya back then, never been jealous of their relationship because she had been so focused on becoming queen to Joffrey's king, on becoming a lady rather than the half-sister of a bastard.
Her mother had told her when she was old enough to understand the difference between highborn and lowborn that he wasn't her true family, wasn't a brother like the others but rather only half as much, because her father hadn't kept his promise to her. From then on, Sansa had never really considered him much other than a boy she called half-brother and kept at arms length.
But Jon had been sweet to her, anyway. Jon had been kind, making sure there were lemon cakes placed aside for her whenever their siblings would devour platefuls without telling her. Jon had been nice, and she sometimes wondered if her mother hadn't misjudged him. But she never said anything, never really thanked him for keeping a handful of lemon cakes out of touch from Robb and Arya.
She had never envied Arya back then, but she finds herself almost jealous of her younger sister now. This dream of Jon was too sweet, too much so that she finds it difficult to imagine it possibly being real.
He would never want her, would he? She was the wrong sister. She was the one sibling he had probably never thought of, probably never dreamt of. But she had dreamed of him on occasion, when she was missing her lost kin and reminded that he still remained to her. He was left. He was family, still. It was sweet, to think of him as her true brother rather than a mistake on her father's behalf.
But she knows now that not all highborn men are gentle and caring, and not all lowborn sons end up greedy and criminals.
She thinks that he might still be kind, the Black Bastard of the Wall, as she has heard him called. He will be sweet, and kind, and gentle. He will be half of a brother but her entire home.
She has long given up praying and wishing, long stopped hoping for a happily ever after. But she wonders if the Gods will be so gracious as to afford her this one small victory, this one warm wish.
He was the personification of the North when she had last seen him, all dark and somber and brooding, yet warm where his skin was cold.
She wonders if he is still the same, still the boy she cast aside, or a man strengthened by war and time. She has changed, endured, suffered. And she wonders if he has, too.
Maybe this will be their fresh ground to start from. Maybe pain and scars and the place they meet again will become holy ground for them.
This is all she thinks of on the fourth day, as they leave the woods and make their way to the Wall. She's almost in awe of it, her younger self thinking back on those stories Old Nan used to tell them as children. But the supposed magic of the Wall is not what she aches to discover, to find.
When they arrive at the gate, dark wood freshly patched over despite its cracks, her dream forces itself to the front of her brain, trying to etch itself onto what is truly happening. Perhaps what she wanted, expected, will not happen and her mind is warning her. Perhaps she will be disappointed.
She can handle it, she thinks. She can handle anything now.
There's a horn blown and some shouting before a man opens the main gate, and she stays by Brienne's side as the man allows them entry.
It is all very alarming, and she only now considers into her calculations that he may not even be around. What if he was away? What if he had been slain? What if the closest person she could call a relative was gone too?
It's icy, and the chill sends shivers down her spine as she rides with her saviours into the courtyard, watching as a red-haired man seems to gape in awe at her knight and a couple of men stop their training where they stop their horses.
The Black Bastard of the Wall is nowhere in sight, she notes, glancing around the Castle with minor trepidation. There are killers, and rapists, and cruel men here. There are bastards here. But her brother is not one of those men. And she has suffered worse.
She is cold, is a truer northerner than she had ever once wanted to be or even thought possible. She is her mother incarnate, but she aspires to be more like her father, too.
Perhaps the reason she fails to find her Black Bastard is because he no longer exists, because he grew and rose in the world and became a man she had once thought herself capable of marrying.
He became a warrior, in sword and steel, while she used her wits to fight her path to survival, no matter the cost or the losses along the way.
They have been burnt, she reflects with her cold blue eyes searching the yard as she lowers from her horse with intent and some strange kind of feeling in her tummy, but they have survived just as much.
A fallen lock of red hair traces her cheek as she observes, takes in the place from the dreams. She'd thought it to be more frightful, all these years, thought that Castle Black was at the northern edge of their world for a reason. It doesn't seem so scary, doesn't frighten her. Or maybe she's been hardened in ways she doesn't think of, in ways she can't understand. Whipping around fast but slow enough to keep her eyes open and clear, she feels her gaze pulled upward, toward a balcony.
She doesn't find the bastard Jon Snow she remembers, with his black curls and solemn face, but rather the Stark who had never been legitimized.
She finds him stood on the balcony, the image of their father in his last days at Winterfell. His dark hair is knotted back, his clothes the reminder of their House, their home.
She watches as the hand he had gripping the splintered banister drops, almost as if he feels a burn when she spots him, meets his eye. She wonders if he recognizes her, or if he thinks her an apparition of someone else.
Jon isn't as somber as she remembers him, but then she thinks that she never really paid much attention. He was the brooding one, who got along with her siblings but never really played with them.
The man stood beside him seems to frown, unsure of who she is and what she represents for his Lord Commander. She is not even sure herself what she means to him. Maybe he won't want her. Maybe he'll send her away and refuse her asylum.
She watches with parted lips as he begins to descend the staircase, unable to tear his gaze from hers. It feels familiar, normal even. But the strangeness lingers due to their past. She wasn't his favourite sibling and he never used to cross her mind, not until she missed home and love.
Her breathing pattern seems to change as she keeps her chilling blue eyes locked on his soft brown ones, recognizing her father's comfort and heart in that one long look.
He isn't the sweet bastard from her dreams, but rather the embodiment of home, of family. He is her brother. And she doesn't doubt it.
He reaches the bottom, reaches her level and he never stops moving. He comes towards her, browns knitted and face disbelieving.
She almost wants to shout, to tell him, 'Yes, Jon. It's me.' But she refrains, unable to find the energy to do anything but stand still, her chest heavy and her emotions nearing a new high. She cannot understand why her heart skips a beat, why her palms sweat beneath her gloves.
Love, the kind she had once yearned so strongly for, had once prayed and pleaded with the gods to find to save her from misery, simply didn't exist for people like her, she reminds herself.
But familial love exists, and it's strong. And she loves him. And he is all she has left in the world.
She hasn't felt this since before she bled for the first time, since the last time she saw her father in one piece, perhaps even since she left Winterfell.
She hasn't felt true, heartwarming love since she was a girl, since she was the Sansa Stark of old and not the cold one of new. She hasn't thought herself allowed to.
But he's here, and he's safe, and he's looking at her as though he is just as encompassed by this moment as she is.
His mouth wavers, seemingly unsure if he should speak or ask or gasp. He stands an inch or so shorter than her, and she finds it endearing that he even resembles their father in stature. He's a Stark, she just never willed herself to admit it until she needed someone.
Instead of talking, or collapsing as she feels her knees capable of doing, she crosses the distance between them, long sleeves flung wide as they wrap around his shoulders.
She does not have time to worry about him not wanting her here before his arms encircle her waist, strong hands pressing into the clothes on her back. Her grip holds steady, keeping him locked in her embrace and he returns her touch with a passion, tugging her tighter to him with a grip on her back, fingers tracing comforting motions against her cloak.
Nuzzling her face into the side of his neck, she breathes him in as though it will be her last embrace in the world, as though it's her most cherished one to date. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it always will be.
Perhaps sweet Jon holding her in his arms will be her very favourite thing in the world.
Her nostrils flare, ignoring the cold air sweeping through the courtyard because she finds it hard to concentrate on anything other than his warmth, and she takes in the tickle of his hair brushing her cheek. It's tender. It makes her feel safe and sound.
He is used to the cold, used to the ache. He is used to pain. The crushing of her body against his own does nothing to increase the pain he feels in his wounds, only in his chest. He aches, in a way he has not done in what feels like forever.
She is sweet, he remembers. He remembers her being gentle and kind to most, but their relationship was never that of close kin. She is taller, even more beautiful than anyone said she would be when grown. She is a woman, and he guesses she has endured numerous hardships since their father's demise and their family's rupture.
He doesn't think of how long it has been since he last saw her, since he last saw any single member of his family, but it feels like a lifetime and that alone is enough for him.
His grip doesn't loosen, doesn't soften when she draws closer, breathing him in with closed eyes and unsteady breaths. He copies her, unintentionally, maybe even naturally. Maybe they have more in common than either of them thought. Maybe they have missed each other equally.
He remembers missing her when Father was captured, worried for hers and Arya's safety. He'd always spent more time thinking of the younger girl, how could he not? She owned a fair portion of his heart. But he cannot deny it and say that all thoughts of Sansa had escaped him entirely.
He dreamt of her once or twice, but Robb was usually around, or Catelyn would appear to drag her away. Sansa would be singing a song in her chambers, about some knight or other, and she'd twirl her hair until she caught him looking from the doorway, catching her as he walked past. Then he'd smile and she'd giggle to herself, pretending he never caught her in the first place. Sweet Sansa, he thinks of her most often. Sweet Sansa with eyes like ice frozen steel.
She may be changed, but she is his family, and he supposes now that he missed her more than he ever thought he could. His eyes close, lips drawn tight as he pulls her closer, keeps her there, keeps her safe against him.
She finds it hard to believe that anybody could ever truly protect anyone, that anybody would be willing to put their own fate in her hands.
But he has her now, and there is no madman to come and drag her away from his safe arms.
She wants home, and Winterfell is calling her name. But she needs help, and blood will be shed in order for her, for them, to reclaim their rightful seats. He deserves to sit beside her because he is a Stark, even more so than Robb, she finds herself thinking remorsefully.
Jon survived. Starks are brave, share their hearts with wolves. And wolves endure.
Maybe they are the true wolves. The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives, Father had always said. Robb was alone, was gone, but they weren't. Perhaps Father wasn't wrong, she thinks to herself.
She breathes shallowly, unwilling to remove her arms from around his neck, from around his promise of comfort, of safety. She does not pray, or hope anymore, but she just asks for a moment longer.
This is their holy ground, and they are home.