It had been foolish, he knew that. Stealing her away was an impulse that had proven impossible to set aside, and impulses were dangerous things. He had survived so long, done so well, by keeping his distance. It was easy to stay cold and removed when his heart wasn't involved. He had thought it was lost forever, that all his emotion had bled out when he lost Cat, and so he made himself a life based on logic and manipulation and mild hedonistic amusement. Caring made people impetuous, and that was dangerous. But he hadn't been prepared to deal with Sansa. Once the impulse had sunk itself in him, the only thing to do was to logic his way through. Even then, he had been sure it would backfire, slip out from under him, but even giving in to this uncharacteristic weakness he was clever enough to stay ahead of his enemies, which was to say everyone.

He made up for it once he got her to the Eyrie. Marrying Lysa Arryn was distasteful, courting her a hundred times more so, but after that one jolt his feelings proved entirely manageable for the sake of his long-term goals. He was relieved that the girl hadn't put him so far out of himself, Cat's daughter or no. He could have stalled indefinitely, acting as Lord of the Eyrie in Robin's stead, securing his hold in the light of Lysa's mad adoration for him and the shadow of Robin's obvious incompetence for the position. But he disliked the necessary pretense that Lysa had the power to confer or revoke titles or power to him; that rankled in a way that soothing her ego never did, and the Eyrie offered precious little in the way of political machinations to amuse him.

So he invented one of his own. It was a delicate maneuver, but it wasn't particularly difficult once he worked out the details. Even in the moment when his mouth pressed over the warmth of Sansa's unresisting lips and the snowflakes caught between them evaporated against their heat, his mind was calculating ahead, through Lysa's explosion, Sansa's terrified response, the scapegoat singer, and freedom.

Without Lysa, he could stretch out into his role, invent details that no one would question, play with the perceptions and assumptions of those around him. He could scrape away the calcified fear that froze Sansa's mind, teach her words she repeated before she fully understood their import, and watch the edges of her mind unfurl into that same understanding. It was better than thinking. It was better than touching. It was better than Cat.

It was better than winning.