~2~
The tears come not as silent, dignified raindrops, but as a bitter torrent, a violent expulsion of pain. Again, she thinks, it has happened again. And of course this is not the same as losing her father, her mother, her brothers, but more the cumulative effect of a lifetime of loss. The last projectile flung against an already crumbling curtain wall. She has been strong for so long. Silent for so long. Now, it all rushes out of her in an ugly, screaming flood.
She falls asleep, exhausted and nauseous from the vicious waves of grief that clench up her stomach and contort her face, though it is more a descent into darkness than true sleep. She awakes with fresh tears on her cheeks to more darkness, skin sore and pebbled from the imprint of the rush matting, body aching and stiff.
I thought I had wept all my tears, she marvels distantly, but though she wipes tiredly at her swollen eyes, still they come.
Eventually the cottage becomes too small, too full up of her own distress. She cannot bear to be seen just now, but it is dark outside and quiet – she has spent all the day crying and sleeping. Brienne stands guard a respectful distance from the door. Sansa pulls up the hood of her cloak and closes the door carefully behind her before walking away on soft feet.
It is a clear night, and bitingly cold. The stars are clear and beautiful in the sky, the same stars she had often gazed on from the Gates of the Moon, and she takes a moment to stand quietly and look at them.
I was just a trapped bird in a gilded cage the last time I did this, she thinks, and sucks in a sobbing breath that's cold as knives. Little bird...
"Where are you?" she whispers to nothing and no one, flinging the accusation into the wind. For a moment, hot ribbons of hate coil in her chest, for him, for Petyr, for her father for leaving her. She picks up a rock and casts it into a nearby tree trunk with all her might, only for it to fall short, the throw feeble and misdirected. Just as I am. She laughs hollowly at the symmetry.
And she walks – once round the island for it is not very big, and finally up the hill to its summit. There is a lichyard here, and she searches fruitlessly for his headstone for some time before she is overcome by the dreadful heart-sickness once more and sinks to her knees on the freezing ground.
She stares out across the black fields and roofs and the Bay of Crabs, unseeing. Her eyes ache with tiredness and her limbs feel heavy as death, and she wonders idly if she could lie down here among the gravestones and slip quietly into the arms of the Stranger.
"It's just that I've thought of you so often," she says softly to the glittering darkness. The night is still and empty, icy cold. The moon has set and the wind dropped, and Sansa finally feels numb. "It almost made you real. When I had no choice but to put on another's face and speak falsities all day long, you were there in my dreams to remind me of my true name. I know I did not always chose to remember you faithfully... I know at times I re-shaped you in my mind like a clay man... I needed a friend, and they have been in such short supply."
How many times has she done this, whispered her deepest, most treacherous thoughts into the dark beneath her bed covers or over her balcony? She could close her eyes and picture a companion so clearly she could hear their voice in her mind, for she is nothing if not an expert in imagining and make believe. Like that, she could be Sansa again and speak to her mother of all the secrets of her heart, ask her father for strength, her brother for guidance. She did not dwell on the fact that easiest of all to conjure up was Sandor Clegane, his rasping voice like steel on stone, pouring his bitter truths in her ear whether she wanted to hear them or not.
It is barely surprising, then, when out of the night a voice replies, "Was I so kind to you in King's Landing that you call me friend now?"
Sansa smiles slightly, sadly. It is the perfect night for ghosts, after all.
"You were not kind at all," she tells the sky. "You were brutal and often mean. But I remember once... you tried to comfort me when I was afraid of Ser Boros. And you lied to Joffrey to save me a beating. You gave me good counsel, you... helped me survive. I am more grateful for that than you will ever know."
"Words are wind," the voice says, so full of familiar disdain that Sansa's chest contracts painfully. "Don't tell me you never wished for more than lies or counsel."
"You saved me from the mob on the day of Myrcella's leaving," she counters. "You gave me your cloak to cover my nakedness when Joffrey had me stripped."
The silence stretches thinly before her ghost speaks again. "Did you never wish I had tried to do more?"
"No, I barely knew what to make of you as it was. I did dream of rescue, but not by you."
There is a deep, bitter chuckle. "And by such standards are my sins forgiven."
"Does my honesty offend you?" she asks the wind. "Forgive me. I dreamt of you later, after Petyr had taken me away."
"Another monster for your nightmares, I've no doubt."
"Don't," Sansa begs, vision starting to blur once more.
"You never could look me in the face, girl," the ghost continues, merciless.
"I was nothing but a stupid child," she whispers. "A shallow, stupid child. To place my trust in the hands of monsters simply because they were beautiful. I have learnt my lesson, believe me. Through pain and suffering and... humiliation. What I would have given for the sight of your face these last, awful years, I can think of nothing sweeter."
"Your clay man, yes. Did you re-make me more comely? Some pretty knight more to your liking?"
"I re-made you gentle," she hisses in reply, closing her eyes as the world blurs and the well of grief bubbles over again. "I re-made you gentle."
There is a sound behind her of boots crunching on frosty earth. The air stirs beside her and she senses a presence, so strong she is tempted to open her eyes. But she does not think she could bear it, to find nothing but empty air.
"You can't look at me now," the ghost says, its own voice sounding queerly choked.
"Do ghosts have scars?" Sansa murmurs, hugging herself. "I hardly think it matters now you're dead." Quietly, for she is utterly exhausted, she begins to sob again. "I wish... I wish it was all different. Not that I could do it again, because I know I would only make the same mistakes. I just wish I could have been better. Wiser, somehow. At least a little. Sometimes I fear this loneliness will crush me-"
"Seven hells," the ghost swears. Through her aching throat, Sansa laughs – he sounds so like himself. Hands grip her wrists, trying to draw them down and away from her face but she resists. She can't bear to look. Can't bear it.
"Sansa," the voice says, pleading now, "I'm not dead. Look at me. Look at me."
"Then why-?" she starts.
"I told Elder Brother to lie," he interrupts. "He asked me whether I wished myself revealed to you, and I said no. I thought you would be happier believing I had died."
"How could you think that?" Sansa wails, and though her hands still cover her face she notices suddenly his hands are warm. They're warm.
"Gods be true," she breathes, and looks at him.
He is kneeling – as she is – on the ground amongst the gravestones, and so he does not seem quite so tall as she remembers. But he is still big – broad and incredibly strong. He takes up all the space before her, and all the air from her lungs as well, and she takes in one great, gasping breath like a drowning woman desperately breaking the surface.
She can barely make out his face in the near-perfect dark, and so she reaches up both hands to his cheeks, running fingertips over smooth skin and twisted scars. Then, she knows. Then, she believes.
Her heart thuds in her chest, the first beats since the morning.
