Summary: It is as unexpected as it is painfully disappointing when next he is invited to her bed.


It is as unexpected as it is painfully disappointing when next he is invited to her bed.

While his desire for her has not lessened, but grown, Sansa has never given any indication that their relationship is to be anything other than what it was upon his first visit after the birth of their son. Theirs is a relations based on the gentle affection of shared parenting and a somewhat tangled past history that occasionally makes for an awkward parting at the end of the night, when Jon doesn't know whether to kiss her cheek or take her hand or fold her tight into his chest, where he wants to keep her.

For the last two years his visits have focused on Benjen, not Sansa, though Sansa is always there, looking on, at his shoulder with a hand on his and a smile on her bowed lips. At first the babe could not do much more than burble and wave his arms, but that was enough to fill hours of their time. As far as Jon was concerned, there weren't enough waking moments in the day during his short visits to commit all the wonders of his son to memory, and Sansa seemed to take delight in his enthusiasm. But it is a delight she never expresses more enthusiastically than with a sigh or kiss to his cheek, and Jon has no intention of shattering the impossible dream they've woven together here, where he is a father and she a mother and their son is the Stark heir to Winterfell, with too willing hands or a questing mouth.

This visit has brought the most changes in Benjen, something that both excites Jon for a future when he might train with his son in the yard or take him out riding in the same places he once learned how and saddens him, knowing how much he has already and will yet miss. Benjen can now walk, talk, and has a personality all his own, though he reminds him of Robb—eager and fearless with the ease ability to charm everyone around him, including his father. These are things he has acquired while Jon was far away with only Sansa's regular letters to fill the void.

The child is aptly named. Sansa meant to pay honor to the tradition of Stark men at the Wall as well as recognize Jon's own fondness for their uncle by naming him Benjen, but the resemblance the child bears to those who came before him has grown more striking over the past twelve moons. He has Jon's dark hair and the makings of a sharp, Stark face, and his eyes are as blue as his great uncle's before him. Although, Jon always sees Sansa in the boy's smiling eyes.

"You're quite the pair," Sansa says, as he shifts the heavy, hot sleeping child with boneless limbs onto his shoulder.

The nursemaid will come shortly to usher Benjen away, but the boy lost the fight with sleep some time ago, having been kept up past his bedtime nightly since Jon's arrival three days previous.

"Are we?" Jon asks, pushing back the hair that curls over his son's brow to expose the unmarked, pale skin beneath that life has not yet etched.

"I like looking at the two of you together," Sansa says, as she leans down to tuck away her embroidery in the basket at her feet.

There is something about her tone that makes the smile the breaks on his face feel somewhat wolfish, but he buries it in the crook of the child's neck.

"I like looking on the two of you too," he says, when she has righted herself and placidly folded her hands over the skirts of her blue gown. "My two favorite people."

"Flatterer," she says, letting her head rest against the back of her chair.

The fire reflects in the hair that winds over her shoulder, lighting it until it shines like liquid metal. He likes seeing himself in his son, it's a reassurance that it's real, that he's a father and this is his son, but it's a shame there's no closer copy of Sansa's incomparable beauty in this world.

"You're his favorite as well," she says, nodding towards the boy, whose mouth is parted in sleep. "He took to you as if no time had passed."

Jon does not delude himself. He knew coming here that his son would not recognize him, would not remember him from when last he came, even though Sansa speaks of him to their son every day. She swears it in every letter, and he knows better than to doubt her. She is a good mother, the kind he would have been lucky to have, and she takes it as part of her duty to remind Benjen that he has a father, who is thinking of him, while he is away.

Jon rubs his hand over Benjen's back, feeling the breath fill and leave his little body. "He's warm hearted. He likes everyone and everything."

"It's a good thing."

"It's a very good thing," Jon agrees. "He's a sweet boy." Sansa's greatest gift is her ability to love, and if their son has inherited it, all the better. "But it makes it rather difficult to say for certain whether he doesn't like the stable boy just as much as he does me."

"Don't jape. You're so very special to him. You're special to us, Jon."

This would be his opening to tell her he loves her even if she mistakes his meaning for something less than what he intends, but the nursemaid bustles in and the moment slips through his fingers. They kiss the sleeping boy's forehead and watch him be bundled from the room by the slightly disapproving older woman, who thinks visiting father or no, children should always be in bed at their appointed bedtimes.

It isn't so late that Jon feels he must leave, but with the child gone the awkward feeling settles into his bones. Reaching for his furs, he is readying himself to bid her goodnight, when her hand settles on his arm.

"Don't go." It is what he's longed to hear, a hushed request in the dark of night with only a fire to light her chamber. "Stay."

It's the way she says it, low and throaty, the way she looks at his lips, and how her fingers toy with his over tunic that has his hand in her hair and cupping the back of her head, bringing her lips to his without any further prompting. They hadn't done this last time. They hadn't wound their arms around each other and kissed and tugged until their bodies were flush together. This is different, better, more, until her hand splays against his chest and she draws back enough to exhale shakily and say, "Benjen deserves a house full of brothers and sisters. Like we had."

He looks down at her, stupidly, owlishly, trying to unhear what she's said, so he can scoop her up and carry her to her bed and show her what he's so very bad at putting into words, but she keeps speaking, sinking the certainty of what this plea of hers is really about into his gut. "I want him to have siblings. I want us to try for more."

He could walk out, reject this offer, which is a mockery of what he would like to be for her, but there is an eagerness that tightens his stomach, an eagerness to accept whatever she offers, so as to make her happy and feel her body beneath his. His hands trail through the silky strands of her hair, imagining wrapping the length of it around his fist to tilt her head back so as to kiss her neck, while he moves inside of her.

His face must betray the conflict that burns inside him, for she reaches up and draws her hand over his cheek with a look of concern replacing the heady excitement of a moment earlier, as she speaks his name in question. "Wouldn't you like more?"

He wants more from her, yes. But that isn't what she offers.

He'll give her the next child she wants, a little boy or girl with her blue eyes and auburn lock, but he'll give her more besides, which is why he bends down to grasp her by the knees and pull her off her feet so quick that she scrambles to hold tight. He won't leave her bed tonight either, once he's spilled his seed, slinking off as if he has something to be ashamed of, as if he is a stud horse to be put out to pasture after his duties are done. She is asking for more and he'll give it to her, though the knowledge of what they lack sours the pleasure into a sad imitation of what it might be.

He knows it's folly, trying to make her love him by wringing one panted crest after another from her until her limbs shiver from exhaustion. It's folly to cleave to her, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her back against his chest until their breathing falls into sync and they drift into sleep. It won't work. She said from the start that she didn't need him to want her, and that he does is his dilemma, not hers. And yet, when the sun begins to creep over the horizon, lighting the room with its pale light, he can't help but roll her over and find the cradle of her hips once more. If he beds her in the light of day is it not more real than in the light of a dying fire?

She greets him with a groggy noise he can feel under his lips as he traces the arch of her neck with his mouth. "You're still here."

"I'm still here."

"And you're awake," she teases, shifting beneath him so that he rubs against her soft stomach.

"Very awake," he agrees with a nip to the dip in her neck.

She pulls his head off her breast, her hands framing his face, and fixes him with a sleepy smile. "You could come to me tonight," she says, stroking his cheeks with amused affection at his unaccustomed impatience. "We have time yet."

"I'll do both."

"Jon," she whines, even as he brushes her center with his morning cock-stand. "My girl will be in any moment to stir the fire."

"You shall have to try to be quiet then," he urges her with a tilt of his hips.

She was not quiet last night as her heels dug into his back and the noise she makes as he buries himself inside of her promises that the serving girl will not long be in doubt of what goes on between her lady and the Lord Commander, though Jon pauses to pull the furs up over their heads to preserve Sansa's modesty. That she doesn't object is a surprise, but what he wants to wring from her is more than welcomed pleasure.