Margaery had been to Winterfell plenty of times by now, more times than she could count. Her and Sansa had been dating for eight years, but she had still never stayed overnight at the Stark house. The estate at Highgarden dwarfed it, but there something about the foggy mornings, cold moors, and harsh stone house that fit, even seemed romantic to her.
As Robb was married, Jon was as good as married, and their extended family loved to visit, the house was always full of guests on holidays, so her and Sansa would normally get a hotel room in Wintertown.
She'd only been in Sansa's bedroom once, but the lights had been off. It was last year, at the New Years party they put on every year. Margaery had been eating one of the traditional Northern honey pastries that Catelyn made, licking the mess from her fingers, eyes fixed on Sansa until she excused them from the drawing room, roughly grabbing Margaery's arm and dragging her upstairs to her childhood bedroom, breathily demanding she make better use of her mouth.
This weekend was different. It was Unification Day weekend, and the pair had travelled north on the long weekend to celebrate the last time all seven provinces were united in the traditional Northern way - camping, bonfires, swimming in frigid lakes, and watching Robb and Theon almost hurt themselves with fireworks.
They'd arrived a day early, and had dinner with Sansa's parents and Rickon, now a senior in high school, who towered over Sansa and her father.
"Sansa," Catelyn said after dinner, "Why don't you help me with the dishes?"
"Sure, mom," Sansa answered. "Mags, will you take the weekend bags up to my room? You remember which one it is, right? From when I showed you on New Years," she added with a quick wink her mother didn't notice.
Margaery grabbed both duffel bags and headed upstairs, remembering exactly which room was correct.
"Sweet holy mother…" she said as soon as she flipped on the lights, looking over her shoulder quickly to make sure no one was behind her to hear.
It was so… so Sansa. Well, Sansa from about ten years ago.
It was as if she'd walked into a Sansa Stark Museum, ages 13 through 18. Margaery was in awe, slowing walking around the pastel blue room and cataloging everything. There were two shelves of trophies and ribbons showcasing Sansa's apparent prowess in everything from basketball and volleyball to…
"Future Farmers of Westeros…?" Margaery read, picking up a large trophy in her hand to examine it. It was free of dust, she assumed Mrs. Stark still came up regularly to clean. The front plaque told her that Sansa had won first prize in the juniors' sheep competition, something which she was trying hard to believe, until she saw a framed picture next to the spot the trophy was in.
Well, I'll be damned. It was a young Sansa, hair long and in two braids, wearing overalls tucked into dark green waders. She held the trophy that Margaery now held. A fluffy sheep with a ribbon stuck to it was next to her.
She put the trophy back in its spot, and maybe against her best judgement, continued her tour of the Sansa museum.
After making some quick work of looking over some stacks of CDs, mentally taking notes of what pop music to make sure she downloaded for the drive home, she found three large photo albums.
Jackpot, Margaery thought. I don't think I've seen any pictures of Sansa from before freshman year.
The first album was adorable. Photos upon photos of young Sansa, Arya, and the rest of the Stark brood. There were formal posed family portraits, a happy group photo with each child holding a fluffy Husky puppy, Sansa covered in a pile of autumn leaves with her father holding a rake behind the pile, everything you'd expect. Margaery pulled out a picture of Sansa and Arya at the beach, burying who she assumed were Robb and Jon in the sand. Margaery's new favorite was a bath time photo showing Robb, Jon, Sansa, Arya, and Bran naked and crammed into a bathtub, all with bubbles piled atop their heads, a very exhausted and very pregnant Catelyn standing off to the side with an armful of towels.
The next album was all what seemed like high school pictures and other items that 17 year old Sansa had wanted to keep. She flipped through some newspaper articles about the high school basketball team that mentioned Sansa, a slew of movie ticket stubs (apparently she'd gone to see The Two Towers three times), and concert tickets.
There was a picture paper clipped to a concert ticket, showing Sansa and her friend Jeyne, who Margaery recognized, dressed almost identically in black t-shirts, Sansa's from Sunny Day Real Estate and Jeyne's from Death Cab for Cutie, white leather belts with buckles so obnoxiously big that Margaery had to stop herself from laughing aloud, black skinny jeans, and Converse All-Stars. They were posed in the picture so you could see the marquee behind them: March 15th, 2002 - Bright Eyes wsg The Postal Service. Oh gods, Sansa had an emo phase? First the sheep competition and now this? How much else is she could she be hiding…
Sansa walked in ten minutes later, hands red and pruned from washing dishes, and stood a foot inside the door, staring with her mouth gaping open at Margaery, who by now was sitting with her legs crossed on the floor, surrounded by pictures she'd taken out of the little plastic pages and was continuing to flip through a photo album.
"…please tell me that's not what I think is," Sansa said.
"I'm just having fun, babe. Some of these are priceless," Margaery replied, then passed a picture to Sansa. "What's with this, though?"
She snatched the picture out of Margaery's hands and flipped it over.
"Seven hells…," she said under her breath. "This is, umm… Me. Before we met."
"Well yes, sweet summer child, obviously. How come you never talked of your rebellious side?"
Sansa looked down at the picture again, thinking back to when it was taken. That rebellious phase that lasted a whole six months from when she turned 18 in March of senior year until she moved away for school. The picture was her and Sandor, the much older guy she met at one of Robb's college parties and dated in spite of her parents' wishes, her seated on the hood of his old beat up 80s Camaro, lit cigarette in hand, him standing next to her. They both wore leather jackets, and she rolled her eyes at how she'd dyed her hair black and shaved the bottom half of it, remembering again how he'd sat with her in the bathroom of his crappy apartment and helped with the very back of her head. She looked closer and could just make out the lip piercing that had been long closed up by now.
"I can't believe you don't have any of these pictures with you at our house. I'd put them everywhere… This one, especially," Margaery said, smiling widely and passing the group bath time picture over to a quickly blushing Sansa. She hopped up on Sansa's bed and patted the open space next to her, then opened up her laptop.
"You are not taking pictures of those with your phone and posting them on Facebook," Sansa warned, her face getting even redder than before. She took a spot next to Margaery and tried to look at the screen. "Or Instagram."
"What? No. Just hold on a sec," she said, starting to type away.
A few seconds later she passed the laptop over to Sansa.
It was a picture from a Flickr photoset of Garlan, Willas, Loras, and Margaery, all naked, all crammed into a too-small bathtub with bubbles piled on top of their heads.
"Here, have at. All the young Margaery pictures you could ever want. I love you, Sans, and turnabout is fair play, yea?"